Things have changed since 1800’s. Society is different now and a little more accepting. In the 1800’s women were supposed to be the good housewives. Women were seen as weak, and the only thing they were good for was giving birth to the children. Women weren’t even allowed to vote at the time. The men were always viewed as strong and the leaders. Woman had nothing while men had ever thing. In today’s time that is not the case. In the era we live in today women are able to join the workforce the same as their counterparts. Even though our society has gotten better since the 1800’s doesn’t mean that it is complete equal gender role. Man still get paid more than a woman in the same profession. Even socially it man and woman are not equal. It is shamed upon and uncommon for a woman to commit adultery, but it has become acceptable for man to do so. Equality has gotten better because women are starting to fight equality. Woman are going against the societal rules because they realizing that they are wrong. Just like the main character in The Awakening, by Katie Chopin …show more content…
She lived in the 1800’s where gender roles were stricter, and women had no choice but to be housewives because laws were made to insure that men were always the head of the household. Chopin was one of the woman who disagreed with the gender roles that society as created for woman. In The Awakening Chopin addresses the issue of how society creates a mold of a perfect mother, wife, and woman. In reality not all women are able to fit that mold. Chopin uses characterization, symbolism, tone, and irony to show that women don’t have to shape themselves into in the societal mold. They can create their own perfect mold, and they can still be a perfect mother, wife, and woman. Just like her main character
Women’s Roles in the American Revolution The American Revolution, defined by Merriam Webster as, “the war that won political independence for 13 of Britain’s North American colonies, which formed the United States of America.” It was the split of a nation, like cells performing mitosis, and the birth of another, like a new cell. It took place between 1775 and 1783 atop the Atlantic Ocean as well as North America. On one side, the war was fought not only by American men, but also by American women. Being one of, if not the most important, events in the history of the United States of America, its success was due to many factors.
Until the middle of the twentieth century, females were in an inferior position to males in all aspects of society. Women who wanted to deviate from the norm were often restrained by males and isolated in a sphere of society’s “perfectly submissive housewife”, a stereotype which women of the world eventually shattered. Kate Chopin accomplished this through her realist piece, The Awakening.
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.
The decade following the Reconstruction Era in American history is brilliantly and descriptively named; the Gilded Age was coated with superficial prosperity which buried its hardships that laid within its core. The rise of big business grabbed American’s attention---whether it was in a positive or negative notion--- and the United State’s focus on minorities declined. Women in the Gilded Age were continuous victims to inequality in contrast to their male counterparts, and the opportunity to pursue their own economic quickly turned into another element of inequality between the genders. On the other hand, the general working class quickly were slaves to big business and the new factory system. Working conditions and wages were unbearable,
Kate Chopin's novella, The Awakening. In Kate Chopin's novella, The Awakening, the reader is introduced into. a society that is strictly male-dominated where women fill in the stereotypical role of watching the children, cooking, cleaning and keeping up with appearances. Writers often highlight the values of a certain society by introducing a character who is alienated from their culture by a trait such as gender, race, or creed.
Over long periods of time change is often inevitable. One such instance of change throughout history is that of family members and their role in not only the family, but also in society as a whole. Although changes can be seen in the roles of every family member, it can be argued that the role of women in the family, especially that of mothers, changed the most. Between the sixteenth century and the twentieth century, the role that mothers played in the family and in society changed greatly.
Edna Pontellier, the protagonist of Kate Chopin’s The Awakening (1899) who would not allow anyone to possess her, is an example of how the cult of domesticity, prevalent in the nineteenth century, oppressed women as passionless mothers who worship their husbands. While Edna isolates herself from her husband, Leonce, she also isolates herself from her children and, thus, from motherhood. However, Chopin utilizes the motherhood metaphor to illustrate Edna’s own rebirth as she awakens throughout the novel. Exploring Chopin’s tale through feminist literary theory and the cult of domesticity, the metaphor of motherhood through Edna’s own maternity as well as her metaphorical rebirth becomes apparent.
Breaking away from society’s “so-called” customs/norms incorporates a large array of valor, inspiration, and most importantly, individuality. Society places normalities upon its people in order to maintain stability and often times, tradition. More specifically, gender roles, such as women raising children; men being the only source of profit, must also be broken in order to establish uniqueness and distinction in a conventional- themed culture, such as Victorian society. Kate Chopin’s The Awakening is perhaps the only novel that fully illustrates the struggle that is leaving Victorian ideals and tradition from a woman’s perspective. Although often considered a feminist text, The Awakening can be viewed as a novel that depicts and promotes individuality using symbolism. Instead of plastering readers with dull literalism, Chopin uses symbols, such birds and music, to relay subtle ideas. Within each fictive part, Chopin provides symbolism that readers must comprehend in order to appreciate the novel as a whole.
Kenneth Eble states, “…She undertook to give the unsparing truth about women’s submerged life” (2). Speaking solely about Kate Chopin, this quote puts emphasis upon Chopin’s disputes with her society. She used her writing as a technique to indirectly explicate her life by the means of narrating her stories through the characters she created. Kate Chopin was one of the modern writers of her time, one who wrote novels concentrating on the common social matters related to women. Her time period consisted of other female authors that focused on the same central theme during the era: exposing the unfairness of the patriarchal society, and women’s search for selfhood, and their search for identity. In Chopin’s novel The Awakening, she incorporates the themes mentioned above to illustrate the veracity of life as she understood it. A literary work approached by the feminist critique seeks to raise awareness of the importance and higher qualities of women. Women in literature may uncover their strengths or find their independence, raising their own self recognition. Several critics deem Chopin as one of the leading feminists of her age because she was willing to publish stories that dealt with women becoming self-governing, who stood up for themselves and novels that explored the difficulties that they faced during the time. Chopin scrutinized sole problems and was not frightened to suggest that women desired something that they were not normally permitted to have: independence. Chopin’s decision to focus on and emphasize the imbalances between the sexes is heavily influenced by her upbringing, her feelings towards society, and the era she subsisted in.
In The Awakening, Kate Chopin depicts the varying definitions of women and their role through her three major female characters, Edna Pontellier, Madamoiselle Reisz and Madame Ratignolle. In the late 1800s, the role of women was strictly being caretakers for both their children and husbands. Edna Pontellier attempts to fit into society’s expectations by marrying Léonce Pontellier and raising two children, yet she struggles with feelings of oppression as she suffers through her unwanted role. Mademoiselle Reisz, a talented musician, is unmarried and childless, rejecting all of society’s ideals. Edna’s friend, Madame Ratignolle, greatly contrasts the two as she represents the model Louisiana women. However, while Edna, Madamoiselle Reisz and Madame Ratignolle each depict a different idea of woman’s role in society, none of these three women reach their full individual potential.
The Awakening is considered to be Chopin’s best work as well as a unlikely novel to be written during the 1890s in America. The Awakening is a story about a woman, Edna Pontelier, who is a conventional wife and mother. Edna experiences a spiritual awakening in the sense of independence that changes her life. Edna Pontellier begins her awakening at the Grand Isle when she is 28 years old. She has been married for ten years, and she has two children. This situation proves to be different from the male characters of most other novels because they almost always do not have to face the complications of marriage and parenthood to reach self-determination (Bogarad 159). Chopin is able to portray this awakening through Edna’s rela...
The 19th and 20th centuries were a time period of change. The world saw many changes from gender roles to racial treatment. Many books written during these time periods reflect these changes. Some caused mass outrage while others helped to bring about change. In the book The Awakening by Kate Chopin, gender roles can be seen throughout the novel. Some of the characters follow society’s “rules” on what a gender is suppose to do while others challenge it. Feminist Lens can be used to help infer and interpret the gender roles that the characters follow or rebel against. Madame Ratignolle and Leonce Pontellier follow eaches respective gender, while Alcee Arobin follows and rebels the male gender expectations during the time period.
Women roles have changed drastically in the last 50 to 80 years, women no longer have to completely conform to society’s gender roles and now enjoy the idea of being individuals. Along with the evolution of women roles in society, women presence and acceptance have drastically grown in modern literature. In early literature it was common to see women roles as simply caretakers, wives or as background; women roles and ideas were nearly non-existent and was rather seen than heard. The belief that women were more involved in the raising of children and taking care of the household was a great theme in many early literatures; women did not get much credit for being apart of the frontier and expansion of many of the nations success until much later.
“Women’s roles were constantly changing and have not stopped still to this day.” In the early 1900s many people expected women to be stay at home moms and let the husbands support them. But this all changes in the 1920s, women got the right to vote and began working from the result of work they have done in the war. Altogether in the 1920s women's roles have changed drastically.
Back in that time, society forms woman to be the mother stereotype which mean dependent and worship their husband, and that whoever intent to break this old morality will be condemned. This theorem, does in fact, is proved the author herself in reality. The society condemned Chopin as terrible, crazy, insane, instead of accepted the idea of equality, right of a woman when the awakening first published. Through 50 years of revolution and history events, woman finally has the right to vote, right to work and purchase happiness, and that when the book republished, it becomes the best book as a classic American fiction. In the awakening, Chopin contrasts the image between Adele, the mother woman and Reisz, the independent artist, and that Chopin portrays the society approve toward their behave. Known as one of "the mother women at Grand Isle", Adele puts her family as the first priority like always, and that she is totally "idolized her children, worshiped her husband". By completely "efface" herself to dominate the society lifestyle, Adele 's image is saw as a dream lady, charming and beautiful which her husband would be "brute" and "[deserve] his death by not adoring her. Differ from Adele...