The Awakening Influence On Society

In Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, Edna, now in her late twenties, is coming to the realization that her current life and is to come in the future will be a sad, or at least meaningless, one. She is simply filling a role that society expects of her and feels that she is losing her own independent existence. The story begins in Grand Isle in 1899. Our character is Edna Pontellier, a wife and mother of two sons. Edna spends most of her time with her friend Adele who is constantly reminding her of her duties and expectations as a mother and wife. Edna ends up meeting a man named Robert, with whom she feels a connection different and deeper than the one she has ever felt with her husband. Gradually the two begin to fall in love, but Robert realizes that this whole situation wasn’t going to end up working out so decides to leave. This event, as well as the relationship Edna later develops with a pianist named Mademoiselle Reisz, who encourages Edna to express herself artistically through playing, marks the beginning of an awakening within Edna. As the story progresses she begins to feel the tensions between her desire for independence and fulfillment and the expectations society has

The story makes you think about how the story would have played out if the events that happen in The Awakening could have happened to a man. Obviously no, the events in the story, the problems and situations faced by Edna are unique to women during this time. The story presents a particular character’s situation, and that that situation ends in tragedy, unconsciously is asking for change. Because Edna's personal accounts of her "awakening" resonate the feminine idea of female identity. By simply seeing how Chopin’s work was suppressed and censored by the people of her time, you are able to better appreciate the work that was put into making this