A Deconstructionist Critique of Chopin’s The Awakening The multiplicity of meanings and (re)interpretations informing critical studies of The Awakening reveal a novel ripe for deconstructionist critique. Just as Chopin evokes an image of the sea as symbolic of Edna’s shifting consciousness (“never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander in abysses of solitude,”138), likewise the deconstructionist reading of a text emphasizes fluidity over structure: “A text consists of words inscribed in and inextricable from the myriad discourses that inform it; from the point of view of deconstruction, the boundaries between any given text and that larger text we call language are always shifting,” (297). From this perspective, the reader/critic opens the doors of interpretation instead of narrowing their focus to any singular, exclusionary reading, and exposes the deconstruction at work within the text itself. Whether defined as feminist martyr, metaphorical lesbian, the triumphant image of social transcendence or a broken bird “beating the air above . . . circlin...
In Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, Edna Pontellier’s suicide is an assertion of her independence and contributes to Chopin’s message that to be independent one must choose between personal desires and societal expectations. Chopin conveys this message through Edna’s reasons for committing suicide and how doing so leads her to total independence.
Did you know that 81% of Americans feel they have a book in them? (Epstein par. 1).
after her husband and children, they were treated as second class citizens with few rights.
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Eichelberger, Clayton L. ?The Awakening: Overview.? Reference Guide to American Literature 3rd ed. (1994): n. pag. Online. Galenet. 4 April 2001. Available FTP: www.galenet.com/servlet/LitRC
Ranging from caged parrots to the meadow in Kentucky, symbols and settings in The Awakening are prominent and provide a deeper meaning than the text does alone. Throughout The Awakening by Kate Chopin, symbols and setting recur representing Edna’s current progress in her awakening. The reader can interpret these and see a timeline of Edna’s changes and turmoil as she undergoes her changes and awakening.
The novel, “Cities of Salt,” by Abdelrahman Munif, is based on political fiction that is intertwined with the real issues that oil has brought to all the aspects of the Middle East. The book focuses on the changes brought by oil driven minds; it also illustrates the initial encounters, the confusion and the grief that Arab people faced during the beginning of the oil industry in a remote region. We learn about the interaction of Arabs and Americans in a small town, presumably found in Saudi Arabia.
Edna seeks occupational freedom in art, but lacks sufficient courage to become a true artist. As Edna awakens to her selfhood and sensuality, she also awakens to art. Originally, Edna “dabbled” with sketching “in an unprofessional way” (Chopin 543). She could only imitate, although poorly (Dyer 89). She attempts to sketch Adèle Ratignolle, but the picture “bore no resemblance” to its subject. After her awakening experience in Grand Isle, Edna begins to view her art as an occupation (Dyer 85). She tells Mademoiselle Reisz that she is “becoming an artist” (Chopin 584). Women traditionally viewed art as a hobby, but to Edna, it was much more important than that. Painting symbolizes Edna’s independence; through art, she breaks free from her society’s mold.
Maynes, Charles. "The Middle East in the Twenty-First Century." Middle East Journal 52.1 (1998): 9-16. JSTOR. Web. 6 June 2011.
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In the novella The Awakening by Kate Chopin, the main character Edna Pontellier “becomes profoundly alienated from traditional roles required by family, country, church, or other social institutions and is unable to reconcile the desire for connection with others with the need for self-expression” (Bogard). The novella takes place in the South during the 1800’s when societal views and appearances meant everything. There were numerous rules and expectations that must be upheld by both men and women, and for independent, stubborn, and curious women such as Edna, this made life challenging. Edna expressed thoughts and goals far beyond her time that made her question her role in life and struggle to identify herself, which caused her to break societal conventions, damage her relationships, and ultimately lose everything.
Yet, according to Yaeger, The Awakening does deserve to be read as “one of the great subversive novels” and for reasons entirely unrelated to the plot mechanics attending Edna’s adulterous urges. A “real transgressive force” animates this novel, Yaeger argues, gathering a narrative momentum through its successive attempts to articulate a language that corresponds to Edna’s interior landscape, “a language which nobody understood,” as Chopin’s narrator says. While Edna may never possess this language nor delight in sharing its spoken cadences with another, the reader of The Awakening experiences a gradual liberatio...
In America, the 1890s were a decade of tension and social change. A central theme in Kate Chopin’s fiction was the independence of women. In Louisiana, most women were their husband’s property. The codes of Napoleon were still governing the matrimonial contract. Since Louisiana was a Catholic state, divorce was rare and scandalous. In any case, Edna Pontellier of Chopin had no legal rights for divorce, even though Léonce undoubtedly did. When Chopin gave life to a hero that tested freedom’s limits, she touched a nerve of the politic body. However, not Edna’s love, nor her artistic inner world, sex, or friendship can reconcile her personal growth, her creativity, her own sense of self and her expectations. It is a very particular academic fashion that has had Edna transformed into some sort of a feminist heroine. If she could have seen that her awakening in fact was a passion for Edna herself, then perhaps her suicide would have been avoided. Everyone was forced to observe, including the cynics that only because a young
Palmer, Edward L. Children in the Cradle of Television. United States of America: D.C. Health, 1987.
In comparison to other works such as Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn wherein the title succinctly tells what the story shall contain, Kate Chopin’s The Awakening represents a work whose title can only be fully understood after the incorporation of the themes and content into the reader’s mind, which can only be incorporated by reading the novel itself. The title, The Awakening, paints a vague mental picture for the reader at first and does not fully portray what content the novel will possess. After thorough reading of the novel, one can understand that the title represents the main character, Edna Pontellier’s, sexual awakening and metaphorical resurrection that takes place in the plot as opposed to not having a clue on what the plot will be about.