In Kate Chopin’s The Awakening and Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, one of the most prevalent and recurring themes and ideas relates to human freedom. The main characters in the two novels, Edna Pontellier and Jane Eyre, both long for social, religious, and sexual emancipation among other things – freedom from the constraints of Victorian society, which have rendered them dependent and inferior to men. While it is true that both protagonists of their respective novels wanted emancipation, their living conditions and qualities of life varied widely. Even though both women, Edna and Jane, wanted “emancipation” from their respective societies, the conditions that each woman was subject to were quite dissimilar. Jane had a very malnourished upbringing and was an orphan, surround by treacherous and tormenting families. Edna, on the other hand, grew up in an affluent and aristocratic home, with little financial troubles. Edna is of a more “modern” generation than Jane, which must be taken into account when comparing the two, however. Jane Eyre was written in 1847 while The Awakening was written in 1899. Even so, both of these women, as was the case with women almost everywhere, had to succumb to what society deemed socially acceptable – very little. Women were generally no more than mere faces whose responsibilities fell into the categories of household affairs, and entertaining. Edna has money, a husband who loves her, children, friends, a large house, and everything else that comes from being wealthy at the time - but it’s not enough for her. She wants to be able to get what she wants when she wants. In this sense, Edna is slightly more “radical” than Jane because of her at times, open disregard for societal customs and traditions. Ult...
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... all the heavy, dark, imagery is used to conjure up a sweltering passion between Jane and Mr. Rochester who later becomes her love and at the end of the novel, her husband. In reverse, the eyes of St. John are described as “large and blue” (Brontë 345), foiling Mr. Rochester. Later on in the novel, St. John’s demeanor is described as “cold”, several times, indicating the lack of passion that exists between him and Jane.
In conclusion, while Edna Pontellier and Jane Eyre lived at different periods of time, their struggle was the same: the struggle to be free and to be able to venture out of their society-designated gender role of the housewife. They defied what was “acceptable” at the time in order to emancipate themselves and to be sexually, socially, and religiously independent. In that sense, they are both heroines of their respective time periods.
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. Unlike the other women of Victorian society, Edna is unwilling to suppress her personal identity and desires for the benefit of her family. She begins “to realize her position in the universe as a human being and to recognize her relationship as an individual to the world within and about her” (35).
Often in novels, a character faces conflicting directions of ambitions, desires, and influences. In such a novel, like “The Awakening,'; the main character, Edna Pontellier, faces these types of conflicting ideas. In a controversial era for women, Edna faces the conflict of living in oppression but desiring freedom. The patriarchal time period has influenced women to live only under the husband’s thumb but at the same time, break away from such repression. These opposing conflicts illuminated the meaning of “social awakening'; in the novel.
When Kate Chopin's "The Awakening" was published at the end of the 19th Century, many reviewers took issue with what they perceived to be the author's defiance of Victorian proprieties, but it is this very defiance with which has been responsible for the revival in the interest of the novel today. This factor is borne out by Chopin's own words throughout her Preface -- where she indicates that women were not recipients of equal treatment. (Chopin, Preface ) Edna takes her own life at the book's end, not because of remorse over having committed adultery but because she can no longer struggle against the social conventions which deny her fulfillment as a person and as a woman. Like Kate Chopin herself, Edna is an artist and a woman of sensitivity who believes that her identity as a woman involves more than being a wife and mother. It is this very type of independent thinking which was viewed as heretical in a society which sought to deny women any meaningful participation.
She doesn't follow the rules. morals that all the women surrounding her succumb to in life. By defying these "laws" Edna makes clear the morals that all the other. women value the satisfaction of their husband, the acceptance of society, and the conformity to the stereotypical roles of a woman. In The Awakening, Edna is used as a tool to emphasize the surrounding.
...ment and realization that he has lost Jane to another man in the following dialogue between them, “’I know where your heart turns, and to what it clings. The interest you cherish is lawless and unconsecrated. Long since you ought to have crushed it: now you should blush to allude to it. You think of Mr. Rochester?’ It was true. I confessed it by silence. ‘Are you going t seek Mr. Rochester?’ ‘I must find out what is become of him.’ ‘It remains for me, then,’ he said, ‘to remember you in my prayers; and to entreat God for you, in all earnestness, that you may not indeed become a castaway. I had thought I recognized in you one of the chose. But God sees not as man sees: His will be done.’” (Bronte 436) Though Jane Eyre’s stay at Moor House and Morton were crucial for her recovery to stability of her life, she yearned to be at Thornfield and wedded to Mr. Rochester.
Edna Pontellier, from the novella The Awakening, written by Kate Chopin, serves as a clear example of a character whose mind is being pulled in two seperate directions. One side of Edna feels pulled to the classical women in America at this time. On the other hand, she wishes to remain free from her womanly restraints. We discover that she does not want to feel tied down with any man, not only her husband, Leonce Pontellier. Edna faces internal and external challenges figuring out which woman she wants to be, the one of the times or the one who possesses freedom from societal norms.
By comparing St. John to a statue, the reader is forced to see St. John as someone who is cold and rigid. Jane sets up the perception that St.John is disconnected from human feelings. Jane also presents a biased view of men when she first meets Rochester, who later becomes her husband. Furthermore, Jane’s first impressions of Rochester are also negative. Upon first being introduced to Rochester, after he asked to see her, Jane comments, “But it appeared he was not in the mood to notice us, for he never lifted his head as we approached. . .
Edna is perceived as selfish for many reasons but i can see why this is one of those. The conflicts that become of this occur first in her marriage and the society. Since during this time society was judgemental and had certain viewpoints, serious conflicts at this point between Victorian society emerged and she is judged harshly and condemned by almost everyone. This conflict leads her to eventually grow depressed
This story represents the lives of women back in the early 19th century. They were so closed in by societal norm and rules that many of them did not have the freedom to be who they wanted to be, or even live they life they wanted to live. The story “The Awakening” is a clear example of this scenario. Edna Pontellier did not have the courage to strength to face society so she felt like she had to die to find her freedom.
During the late nineteenth century, the time of protagonist Edna Pontellier, a woman's place in society was confined to worshipping her children and submitting to her husband. Kate Chopin's novel, The Awakening, encompasses the frustrations and the triumphs in a woman's life as she attempts to cope with these strict cultural demands. Defying the stereotype of a "mother-woman," Edna battles the pressures of 1899 that command her to be a subdued and devoted housewife. Although Edna's ultimate suicide is a waste of her struggles against an oppressive society, The Awakening supports and encourages feminism as a way for women to obtain sexual freedom, financial independence, and individual identity.
Largely throughout the history of the United States of America, women have been intimately oppressed by their spouses in collusion with a patriarchal society. The Realist literary period saw no exception to this oppression of women. The Realist period, which lasted approximately from 1865-1910, involved many injustices on women, women’s rights, and equality. Males were supreme to females throughout this period, and women were denied many basic freedoms, including the right to vote. Women were regarded as frail, unequal, and inferior. However, the marginalization of women in this period did not go without protest. Women began to have an active voice on issues pertaining to their own rights as the end of the Realist period neared. Headways into women’s rights were made in this period around the turn of the century. “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gillman chronicles the oppression and deteriorating sanity of Jane, who is being confined in a room by her physician and husband. This story is critical in telling of the oppression and subordination of women to their husbands throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries. “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin depicts a frail woman, who dies after a fright from her husband, who she believed was dead. The Awakening by Kate Chopin details the life of Edna Pontellier, who seeks individualism and life away from the control of men. Edna Pontellier assists in representing the audible and vociferous women’s rights movement that arose towards the end of the 19th century. American women in the Realist literary period encountered three elements that defined their societal status: oppression, inequality, and activism.
Jane Eyre, written by Charlotte Brontë, was published in 1847 by Smith, Elder & Company, in London. This year is exactly ten years into Queen Victoria’s sixty-four year reign of the British Empire. The Victorian Era was renowned for its patriarchal Society and definition by class. These two things provide vital background to the novel, as Jane suffers from both. Jane Eyre relates in some ways to Brontë’s own life, as its original title suggest, “Jane Eyre: An Autobiography”. Charlotte Brontë would have suffered from too, as a relatively poor woman. She would have been treated lowly within the community. In fact, the book itself was published under a pseudonym of Currer Bell, the initials taken from Brontë’s own name, due to the fact that a book published by a woman was seen as inferior, as they were deemed intellectually substandard to men. Emily Brontë, Charlotte’s sister, was also forced to publish her most famous novel, Wuthering Heights, under the nom de plume of Ellis Bell, again taking the initials of her name to form her own alias. The novel is a political touchstone to illustrate the period in which it was written, and also acts as a critique of the Victorian patriarchal society.
Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre chronicles the growth of her titular character from girlhood to maturity, focusing on her journey from dependence on negative authority figures to both monetary and psychological independence, from confusion to a clear understanding of self, and from inequality to equality with those to whom she was formerly subject. Originally dependent on her Aunt Reed, Mr. Brocklehurst, and Mr. Rochester, she gains independence through her inheritance and teaching positions. Over the course of the novel, she awakens towards self-understanding, resulting in contentment and eventual happiness. She also achieves equality with the important masculine figures in her life, such as St. John Rivers and Mr. Rochester, gaining self-fulfillment as an independent, fully developed equal.
The most prevalent and obvious gender issue present in the novella was that Edna challenged cultural norms and broke societal expectations in an attempt to define herself. Editors agree, “Edna Pontellier flouts social convention on almost every page…Edna consistently disregards her ‘duties’ to her husband, her children, and her ‘station’ in life” (Culley 120). Due to this, she did not uphold what was expected of her because she was trying to be superior, and women were expected to be subordinate to men. During that time, the women were viewed as possessions that men controlled. It was the woman’s job to clean the house, cook the meals, and take care of the children, yet Edna did none of these things. Her lifestyle was much different. She refused to listen to her husband as time progressed and continually pushed the boundaries of her role. For example, during that time period “the wife was bound to live with her husban...
Similar to many of the great feministic novels of its time, Jane Eyre purely emerges as a story focused on the quest for love. The novel’s protagonist, Jane, searches not only for the romantic side of love, but ultimately for a sense of self-worth and independence. Set in the overlapping times of the Victorian and Gothic periods, the novel touches upon both women’s supposed rights, and their inner struggle for liberty. Orphaned at an early age, Jane was born into a modest lifestyle, without any major parent roles to guide her through life’s obstacles. Instead, she spent much of her adolescent years locked in imaginary chains, serving those around her but never enjoying the many decadences life has to offer. It is not until Jane becomes a governess that many minute privileges become available to her and offer Jane a glance at what life could have been. It is on her quest for redemption and discovery that she truly is liberated. Throughout Charlotte Bronte’s classic novel Jane Eyre, the story’s protagonist Jane, struggles to achieve the balance of both autonomy and love, without sacrificing herself in the process.