Cold Mountain Sacrifice

Throughout history individuals have been plagued with decisions in which they must choose to act in their best interest or act as a martyr, dedicating their lives to the best interests of others. While these choices may seem irrational, selfish, and poorly contemplated from the outside, on the inside there are simply no other options. Paradoxically, the protagonists in both Kate Chopin’s The Awakening and Charles Frazier’s Cold Mountain sacrifice what is precious to them to preserve their emotional and spiritual survival.

	Chopin’s Edna Pontillier forfeits a comfortable role and style of life in order to maintain her emotional integrity and independence. Set in the late Victorian Era, characterized by a rigid repression of women’s

She finds it particularly difficult to conform to the expected role of Victorian motherhood. Leonce, Edna’s husband, is rather upset by this fact, and often tells Edna that she must become a better mother, more involved in her children’s lives, similarly to their friend Adele, who idolizes her children and worships her husband. "In short, Mrs. Pontillier was not a mother-woman. This mother-woman seemed to prevail that summer at Grand Isle. It was easy to know them, fluttering about with extended, protecting wings when any harm, real or imaginary, threatened their precious broad. They were woman who idolized their children, worshiped their husbands, and esteemed it a holy privilege to efface themselves as individuals and grow wings as ministering angels." (Chopin, 8) Furthermore proving her independence and self-reliance, many parallelisms are drawn between Edna and the language spoken by Mrs. Lebrun’s parrot. It is "language which nobody understood." (Chopin 1) Edna’s constant struggle with dissatisfaction with the social

Set in the Civil War Era, society, in the days of Inman and Ada Monroe, many stereotypes and societal standards were pressured upon people. As a woman, Ada Monroe is envisioned as a prim and proper Southern woman. Even Inman states that he envisions how she should look. "Ada would step out the door onto the porch without knowing he was coming, just going about her doings. She would be dressed in her fine clothes. She would see him and know him in every feature. She would run to him, lifting her skirts above her ankle boots as she came down the steps. She would rush across the yard and through the gate in a flurry of petticoats…" (Frazier 394) Ada’s father, Monroe, was described as a wealthy man from Charleston, stricken with a chronic disease which could only be ailed by that which a peaceful farm in Cold Mountain could offer. With the money Monroe possessed, it was unnecessary to do the farm work himself, and therefore hired help to do it for him. With his passing, the farm became Ada’s. She has the option to return to Charleston or stay at the farm. "The thought of returning to Charleston as some desperate predatory spinster was appalling to her… If she returned to Charleston under those humiliating conditions, she could expect little sympathy and much withering commentary, for in the eyes of many she had foolishly