Analysis Of Internal Struggle In Kate Chopin's 'The Awakening'

Sabrina Torres
Mrs. Tighe
English 3 AP/IB
13 August 2015
Edna Pontieller’s Internal Struggle as a Result of External Forces
An individual’s struggle may bring a single end result, however speculation on the cause of the struggle is very ambiguous. In Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, a woman serves as a paradigm of self-discovery at any time of one’s life. Throughout a collection of criticisms by Wolff, Yaeger, Franklin, and Treu it’s evident that Chopin was attempting to illustrate a modern woman’s struggle for individuality in midst of suppression from patriarchy and her internal strife, and the fault in allowing dreams to fabricate an unattainable reality.
Firstly, the criticism Thanatos and Eros, by Cynthia Griffin Wolff, elaborates on the

Franklin continues the argument that Edna is an example of the “labor toward self of the female hero with the accompanying inner and outer threats to attainment of selfhood” (Franklin 510) in her criticism The Awakening and the Failure of Psyche. Franklin also compares Edna’s character to a mythological figure; the comparison proves how it is “clear that heroism is necessary for the nascent self to resist the lure and power of unconscious” (Franklin 510). To first address Franklin’s discussion of Edna’s fight to become a female hero, it’s displayed in the criticism that Edna’s individuality is one of a matriarchal society. However, as Franklin proves, Edna wants are different than her actions because she “begins to play with different love roles, such as courtly love” (Franklin 514). Edna is then said to be a sexually awakened being because of her dabbling in different love roles as well as her idealism in her new relationships; although, her new sexual being comes with a cost because she, as said by Franklin, falls into the “narrow roles prescribed by the patriarchs” (Franklin 520). This struggle, as identified by Franklin, adds to the darkness in her emerging ego out of the stifling atmosphere. The criticism then elaborates on how the stifling atmosphere brings Edna to believe that there is a whimsical love in her journey individuation, but instead “Chopin now wishes [the readers] to see that Edna has a crucial choice to make: either to accept the fantastic nature of romantic love and continue on her solitary journey to self, or to refuse to acknowledge romantic love’s transient nature and embrace death” (Franklin 524). Franklin identifies Edna’s labor to find a balance between love and individuality as one similar to both the spirits of Psyche and Eros; they each have a continually struggle to strive towards two different passionate loves. Franklin explains that much like Psyche’s yearning, Edna’s infatuation with Robert is one in which