Concept Board

Mood Board for Book Covers

I wanted to go with a Victorian kind of feeling, but also incorporate a feeling of freedom. Two of the books have to do with the ocean, so I thought that was important to include- and the ocean also gives an open feeling of endlessness.

New Concept Statement

Concept Statement -

The compound word that I chose for my book series is:

Feminist-Traditional

Feminist - the doctrine advocating social, political, and all other rights of women equal to those of men

-radical, change, going against the grain, modern, female, strong

Traditional - the handing down of statements, beliefs, legends, customs, information, etc., from generation to generation, esp. by word of mouth or by practice: a story that has come down to us by popular tradition.

-stuffy, old, stuck, turn of the century, victorian, southern, 

These books all have a strong female main character that is fighting against social norms of the traditional society that she is stuck in. Critics have said that Kate Chopin was the pioneer of the feminist modern movement in literature. Her writing was almost ignored until about 20 years after her death when the feminist movement started taking shape.

For my book covers, I really want to convey the juxtaposition between the feminist values and the traditional southern society and time period.

Audience and Concept Statement for Book Covers

Audience Persona -

Beth is a 17-year-old high school student. She has a few close friends, but she mostly likes to spend time by herself. She does okay in school, but she can usually be found day-dreaming while the teachers are talking. She has a part-time job at the Goodwill. She also buys most of her clothes at the Goodwill or sews them herself. She rides her bike most places around town.

She wants to go to college next year to be an English major at Colorado University at Boulder. She has never had a boyfriend, and doesn't want one. She thinks of herself as an individual. She writes in a journal every day and is also interested in writing poetry. She also does some black and white photography in her spare time.

Beth wants to be a high school English teacher when she graduates from college. She does not see any children in her future, except for her students.

Concept Statement -

I want to show the time period and its influence, but I want the books to have a modern flair that can relate to women of today.

Book cover project research

1. Series - a group or a number of related or similar things, events, etc., arranged or occurring in temporal, spatial, or other order or succession; sequence

Sequence -

1. the following of one thing after another; succession.

2. order of suc

cession: a list of books in alphabetical sequence.

3. a continuous or connected series: a sonnet sequence.

Sign -

-a token; indication. any object, action, event, pattern, etc., that conveys a meaning. a conventional or arbitrary mark, figure, or symbol used as an abbreviation for the word or words it represents

Icon - looks like or resembles the thing it represents

-a picture, image, or other representation. For example: a representation of some sacred personage, as Christ or a saint or angel, painted usually on a wood surface and venerated itself as sacred.

Index – is something that points to something else. Like how a paw print can point to a bear. Something used or serving to point out; a sign, token, or indication: a true index of his character.

3. See Post below

4. “The Awakening” by Kate Chopin

“Bayou Folk” by Kate Chopin

“At Fault” by Kate Chopin

Women’s search for selfhood, self-discovery, and identity

5. American author Kate Chopin (1850–1904) wrote two novels and about a hundred short stories in the 1890s. Most of her fiction is set in Louisiana and most of her best-known work focuses on the lives of sensitive, intelligent women.

Her short stories were well received in her own time and were published by some of America's most prestigious magazines—Vogue, the Atlantic Monthly, Harper's Young People, Youth's Companion, and the Century. A few stories were syndicated by the American Press Association. Her stories appeared also in her two published collections, Bayou Folk (1894) and A Night in Acadie (1897), both of which received good reviews from critics across the country. About a third of her stories are children's stories—those published in or submitted to children's magazines or those similar in subject or theme to those that were. By the late 1890s Kate Chopin was well known among American readers of magazine fiction.

Her early novel At Fault (1890) had not been much noticed by the public, but The Awakening (1899) was widely condemned. Critics called it morbid, vulgar, and disagreeable. Willa Cather, who would become a well known twentieth-century American author, labeled it trite and sordid.

The Awakening cover as it looked in 1899.

Some modern scholars have written that the novel was banned at Chopin's hometown library in St. Louis, but this claim has not been able to be verified, although in 1902, the Evanston, Illinois, Public Library removed The Awakening from its open shelves. Chopin's third collection of stories, to have been called A Vocation and a Voice, was for unknown reasons cancelled by the publisher and did not appear as a separate volume until 1991.

Chopin's novels were mostly forgotten after her death in 1904, but in the 1920s her short stories began to appear in anthologies, and slowly people again came to read her. In the 1930s a Chopin biography appeared which spoke well of her short fiction but dismissed The Awakening as unfortunate. However, by the 1950s scholars and others recognized that the novel is an insightful and moving work of fiction. Such readers set in motion a Kate Chopin revival, one of the more remarkable literary revivals in the United States.

The Awakening is a short novel by Kate Chopin, first published in 1899. It is widely considered to be a proto-feminist precursor to American modernism. Her stories of fiercely independent women, culminating in her masterpiece The Awakening (1899), challenged contemporary mores as much by their sensuousness as their politics, and today seem decades ahead of their time. Now, The Library of America collects all of Chopin's novels and stories as never before in one authoritative volume.

The explosive novel At Fault (1890) centers on a love triangle between a strong-willed young widow, a stiff St. Louis businessman, and the man's alcoholic wife.

Many of the twenty-three stories included in Bayou Folk (1894) are set in the Cane River country of Louisiana where Chopin herself lived for several years. In these stories her characters challenge the limits of their socioeconomic station and rebel against the social mores of their times. While this collection earned Chopin praise, her acclaim diminished within her lifetime as she more frequently turned to subject matter that critics considered scandalous.

Associated Word List –

Women, strength, individuality, sea, journal, diary, thoughts, men, suicide, break, nontraditional, youth, rebellion, intelligent, sensitive, identity, self-discovery, nonconformity, life, sexuality, sensuality, revolt, feminine, motherhood, selfhood, fault, awakening, dark, modern, modernity, romantic, realistic, stormy, feminist, historical, French, influence, eyes, open, closed, misty, upper-class, formality, music, study, books, education, lace, frills, covered-up, suppressed, depressed, freedom, birds, sky

Strength - moral power, firmness, or courage

Individuality - the particular character, or aggregate of qualities, that distinguishes one person or thing from others; sole and personal nature

Awakening - a recognition, realization, or coming into awareness of something; a renewal of interest; a revival

Feminist - the doctrine advocating social, political, and all other rights of women equal to those of men; feminine character

Freedom - the power to determine action without restraint

Rebellion - resistance to or defiance of any authority, control, or tradition

open - having no means of closing or barring

Tone – These books have a serious tone that mirrors Chopin’s real life and speaks to the changing status of women. The individuality of women is still shunned in the upper-class in this time period. The books are all about the strength and suppression of women.

more organic

more complex

nontraditional

modern

handmade

To Suggest –

-the time period
-feminist tones
-the feeling of discovery
-modernity
-upper-class society

-changing status of women

-scandals

-freedom of the individual

Quotes -

'You are burnt beyond recognition,' he added, looking at his wife as one looks at a valuable piece of personal property which has suffered some damage.

"The voice of the sea is seductive; never ceasing, whispering, clearing, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander for a spell in the abysses of solitude; to lose itself in mazes of inward contemplation. The voice of the sea speaks to the soul. The touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace."

"That she was seeing with different eyes and making the acquaintance of new conditions in herself that colored and changed her environment, she did not yet suspect."

"She looked into the distance, and the old terror flamed up for an instant, then sank again."

A person can't have everything in this world; and it was a little unreasonable of her to expect it.

It was still quite light out of doors, but inside with the curtains drawn and the smouldering fire sending out a dim, uncertain glow, the room was full of deep shadows.

The bird that would soar above the plain of tradition and prejudice must have strong wings.

When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease- of joy that kills.

“There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully.”

“She said it over and over under the breath: ‘free, free, free!”

“There would be no one to live for in those coming years. She would live for herself.”

Book Covers

Here are some book covers that I've always loved. I wanted to do a couple Chuck Palahniuk books, but they are already too good :(