The awakening is a story where the protagonist Edna rediscovers herself as an independent woman. She breaks the rules that were implemented in the society of the time period she lived in. Edna was married to Leonce and had children, however she was not attached to her family, and it was not because she didn’t love them, but she was not a devoted mother and wife. Edna starts to feel attraction towards Robert who was known for his tendency to seek married women. When Robert leaves to Mexico, Edna wants to live in a separate house from her husband. Adele a friend of Edna advices her that her action will damage her reputation, but Edna wants to be free and independent women and she decide to move out of the house. Edna starts to like her freedom …show more content…
Attachment and Feminism theory are similar in that both discuss a concept of developing a sense of self or self-identity. On the book the awakening Edna can be described as a respectable woman who is married and has children, but she is not happy with the role of wife and mother. She wants to be by herself away from the duties of being a female in the Victorian era. In order to be the independent women she wants to be, she deconstructed the role of submissive women and she decided to move out her husband’s house while he was away. Both theories can explain how Edna is looking for herself identify as a women and her own sense of self. She also deconstructs the expectations set by the society she lives in. Attachment and Feminism theories can help describe Edna’s self identity, because she also discovers her sexual desire with Robert. She concentrates more on her painting career and leaves her social responsibilities on the side. She becomes disobedient towards her husband one could link her change with the feminist theory because Edna wants to have an equal role as her husband. During that time it was normal for males to have affairs but if women had an affair it was degrading for her and her family. Leonce finds Edna detachment and disobedience as if Edna was sick and he calls a physician to check the unnatural behavior of his wife. Of course Leonce thinks there is something wrong with Edna because she is not acting as a proper women and wife. When Edna starts her …show more content…
Some of the differences of Attachment theory and Feminism theory is that the attachment theory has to do with Edna’s experience of attachment and her internal working model and Feminism is about undoing gender inequality. Edna seems to be reserved and doesn’t show much interest towards her family, she explains in the book that she is not committed to the role of being a conditional mother. Edna is also distant towards her friends as well, she talks to Adele but there is not a deep connection with her. In the society that she lives she is a respectable woman who assists social events and is seen as typical house women with the responsibility to stay home and take care of the house and children while her husband can go out at night with his friends and have a demanding position in society. The attachment theory has to do with how Edna interacts with her the people that surround her and how she acts with her own family. And then we have the feminism theory is about gender inequality and trying to achieve equity by eradicating gender stereotypes of masculinity and femininity. Edna does this by being a liberal women and deciding to dedicate her time to art, and she avoids her social events that were normative for her. She wants to be free from men, she wants to be independent and escape from the traditional women stereotype. From the book I was able to interpret that since Edna was able to understand that people in her society will not understand her wants she had no
In fact, Edna seems to drift from setting to setting in the novel, never really finding her true self - until the end of the novel. Chopin seems highly concerned with this question throughout her narrative. On a larger scale, the author seems to be probing even more deeply into the essence of the female experience: Do women in general have a place in the world, and is the life of a woman the cumbersome pursuit to find that very place? The Awakening struggles with this question, raising it to multiple levels of complexity. Edna finds liberation and happiness in various places throughout the novel, yet this is almost immediately countered by unhappiness and misery.
Edna’s recognition of herself as an individual as opposed to a submissive housewife is controversial because it’s unorthodox. When she commits suicide, it’s because she cannot satisfy her desire to be an individual while society scorns her for not following the traditional expectations of women. Edna commits suicide because she has no other option. She wouldn’t be fulfilled by continuing to be a wife and a mother and returning to the lifestyle that she led before her self-discovery.
The Awakening is a novel about the growth of a woman becoming her own person; in spite of the expectations society has for her. The book follows Edna Pontellier as she struggles to find her identity. Edna knows that she cannot be happy filling the role that society has created for her. She did not believe that she could break from this pattern because of the pressures of society. As a result she ends up taking her own life. However, readers should not sympathize with her for taking her own life.
Social expectations of women affected Edna and other individuals in Kate Chopin’s novel The Awakening. The protagonist, Edna Pontellier, struggles throughout the novel in order to become independent and avoid her roles as mother and housewife in American Victorian society in 1899. This was because women during the 19th century were limited by what society demanded of them, to be the ideal housewives who would take care of their families. However, Edna tries to overcome these obstacles by exploring other options, such as having secret relationships with Robert and Arobin. Although Edna seeks to be independent throughout the novel, in the end she has been awakened but has not achieved independence.
Fox-Genovese also emphasizes this point, when she says that both the feminist and the psychological aspect of “The Awakening,” “must be read together, for the grounds for choosing one rather than the other do not exist” (262). Other women may have, and do, find a way to exist in such a society and be happy with the little freedom they are allowed. Therefore, Edna Pontellier is portrayed a prisoner of her own upper-class society. Her surroundings demand of herself that she conforms to certain feminine ideals, which she however, is not willing to do. This final episode with Edna naked for the first time stresses the idea of rebirth in Edna; she is now "some new-born creature" (113) at the end of her life. Expression becomes a symbol of freedom for Edna. Fox-Genovese’s conclusion about “The Awakening” is that the novel tells the story of the progress in the Edna Pontellier’s character, as well as her mental regression. As Edna discovers the injustice of her male dominated society, rejecting its values, and managing to break away from society’s traditional gender roles, her stories furthermore depict her “psychological regression,” as Fox-Genovese has stated about Edna’s journey in “The Awakening” (262). Edna can only be herself when she is alone, without the
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.
In The Awakening, the male characters attempt to exert control over the character of Edna. None of the men understand her need for independence. Edna thinks she will find true love with Robert but realizes that he will never understand her needs to be an independent woman. Edna's father and husband control her and they feel she has a specific duty as a woman. Alcee Arobin, also attempts to control Edna in his own way. Edna knows she wants freedom. She realizes this at the beginning of the book. "Mrs. Pontellier was beginning to realize her position in the universe as a human being, and to recognize her relations as an individual to the world within and about her (Pg. 642). Throughout The Awakening she is trying to gain that independence that she wants so bad.
Chopin’s novel is filled with different themes. Her themes are what really gets her message to her readers. one of her themes is identity because becoming the person that you want to be is what The Awakening is all about. Knowing who you are is a big component in becoming free. That is why Chopin created an identity theme in her novel. Edna is constantly trying to find out who is wants to be. Edna knows that she is not the perfect mother and wife like Madame Ratignolle, and she also knows that she would never want to live alone like Mademoiselle Reisz. Who is the true Edna P? That is what Edna is find out, and that is the question most women should ask themselves. Who is the true me? Chopin has another theme that pushes her message even more.
Kate Chopin’s The Awakening takes place in the late 19th century, in Grande Isle off the coast of Louisiana. The author writes about the main character, Edna Pontellier, to express her empowering quality of life. Edna is a working housewife,and yearns for social freedom. On a quest of self discovery, Edna meets Madame Ratignolle and Mademoiselle Reisz, falls in and out of love,and eventually ends up taking her own life. Kate Chopin’s The Awakening shows how the main character Edna Pontellier has been trapped for so many years and has no freedom, yet Edna finally “awakens” after so long to her own power and her ability to be free.
The Awakening sheds light on the desire among many women to be independent. Throughout the novel Edna conducts herself in a way that was disavowed by many and comes to the realization that her gender prevented her from pursuing what she believed would be an enjoyable life. As the story progresses Edna continues to trade her family obligations for her own personal pleasures. This behavior would not have been accepted and many even criticize the novel for even speaking about such activities. Kate Chopin essentially wrote about everything a women couldn’t do. Moreover, it also highlights the point that a man is able to do everything Edna did, but without the same
The author of The Awakening uses the characters in the novel to create Edna. The characters create Edna by influencing her decisions, her desire for independence, and her newfound sexuality. Robert, Mademoiselle Riesz, and Alcee Arobin help Edna become an independent woman by stimulating her new sexuality and desire for independence, and supporting her expression through art and her bold decisions throughout the novel. Leonce, Madame Ratignolle, and Edna’s father try to prevent Edna’s awakening by helping her learn the ways of tradition and convincing her that she can be a better wife and mother but do not support her in her new lifestyle. These persistent attitudes these characters share drive Edna to separate from her family and move out showing her desire for independence.
Individual will is a force that is significant, and yet can be manipulated by a more powerful source. In the Victorian Age setting within The Awakening by Kate Chopin, men have been manipulated by society. They are forced to reflect their norms on women. These norms have been caused repressive and manipulative behavior within men. Edna Pontellier, protagonist of the novel, confronts several men who confront her yearning for individualism. Each male plays a role ordained by society and as a result they develop characteristics that promote specific, yet conflicting images to the reader.
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.
...tionship she had until she was left with literally no reason to live. Throughout the novella, she breaks social conventions, which damages her reputation and her relationships with her friends, husband, and children. Through Edna’s thoughts and actions, numerous gender issues and expectations are displayed within The Awakening because she serves as a direct representation of feminist ideals, social changes, and a revolution to come.
In it they find a forerunner of Liberation. Though The Awakening has a similar path with Madame Bovary of Flaubert, it doesn’t share a lot with that amazing precursor. Emma Bovary awakens tragically and belatedly indeed, but Edna only goes from one reverie mode to another, until she frowns in the sea, which represents to her mother and the night, the inmost self and death. Edna is more isolated in the end than before. It is a very particular academic fashion that has had Edna transformed into some sort of a feminist heroine. In The Awakening, the protagonist, thus Edna, is a victim because she made herself one. Chopin shows it as having a hothouse atmosphere, but that doesn’t seem to be the only context for Edna, who loves no one in fact- not her husband, children, lovers, or friends- and the awakening of whom is only that of