Responsibility In Edna Pontellier's The Awakening

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In the novel, The Awakening, before a realization of true misery, Edna Pontellier shaped her happiness around the ideals of money, family and responsibility. After acknowledging discontent, Edna abandons her stable life to fulfill her newly awakened character. Her epiphany leads her to have an impulsive attitude and selfish lifestyle in order to escape a world of responsibility. She reinvents herself and embraces her independence thus living sensuously in order to stop masking a happy life as a mother-woman. Edna Pontellier is trapped in a fruitless marriage and social requirements, but after finding her true self through an awakening, she decides to lead a reckless life based on desire in order to fulfill her new independent and liberated character. After arising to her true self, Edna recognizes the sources of unhappiness in her life and chooses to bide them away. In order to show her lack of sympathy towards her obligations she uses metaphor to demonstrate how her husband doesn’t recognize a shift in …show more content…

Pontellier hid behind a sheltered and conservative lifestyle before her awakening to self-discovery. Her role as a mother-women no longer satisfies her needs and she acknowledges her discontent with a fruitless marriage. After arising to a new sense of self, Edna abandons all responsibilities and carries out a reckless life, which in the end is fleeting. She feels unfulfilled in the actions in her life so far and decides to start fresh and live her life spontaneously. Mrs. Pontellier’s rash decisions leave her with a short-lived satisfaction and cause her to constantly change her mind and act on different impulse. Actions such as abandoning her children, lusting over Robert and Arobin, and ultimately her own suicide display her reckless and sensuous behaviors that are unrecognizable to any of her companions. Overall, Edna’s independence and freedom have a negative impact on her role as mother-woman, emotional stability and

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