Kate Chopin's Awakening
Kate Chopin's depiction of “The Awakening” is realistic as she develops Edna Pontellier’s character from a socially and morally respectable individual to an individual that turns her back on everything closest to her as she births her new self-being. Edna Pontellier struggles between her subconscious and conscious thoughts as unusual feelings stir unfounded emotions and senses. Some of Chopin’s characters lend themselves in Edna’s “awakening”. Through examination of Leonce Pontellier, Robert Lebrun, Madame Moiselle Reisz, Adele Ratignolle, and Alcee Arobin the life of Edna Pontellier turns into her ultimate death. The relationship she has with each one of these characters influences and initiates a lost feeling that has never risen to its complete capacity. As Edna awakens to this new self she becomes self absorbs and chooses herself-satisfaction over her family.
Edna and Leonce’s marriage didn’t start as two star crosses lovers, but more of convenience. Leonce pursued Edna and “fell in love” with her (Kate Chopin 32). Edna wasn’t in love with Leonce, but rather embraced the idea of defying her family. Kate Chopin states, “And to this violent opposition of her father and sister Margaret to her marriage with a Catholic, there is no need to search for the motive which led her to accept Leonce as her husband” (32). Leonce’s commitment to Edna satisfied her mind set. When Leonce “goes to join the calvary officer…” (33). Edna finds herself in the depths of the realization that she is left alone. This is the first of many times that Leonce leaves her. Although Leonce takes good care of his family financially, there is the definite absence of intimacy between he and Edna. It seems Edna has never had an intimate relationship, but has had intimate feelings of fascination. Chopin reveals, “she remembered feeling enarmored with a Kentuckian Calvary officer who came to visit her father, after he faded from her existence her mind turned to a gentleman who called upon a neighbor. He too vanished from her dreams” (31-32). Emerging from adolescence into puberty can stir a child’s emotions. They can become infatuated with virtually any attractable figure.
At this point in a child’s life he needs parental guidance. Since Edna’s mother is dead she was probably somewhat rebellious and though Leonce made her happy in the beginning their relation...
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...’t realize that there is anything wrong with her life until she meets those around her that are free from conformity. In Mme. Reisz, Edna admires and desires what she has which is independency. She doesn’t rely on anyone for anything. In Adele she sees the mother that she would like to be, but doesn’t want to bother. She cares more about her own satisfaction, independent of her family. Robert Lebrun stirred something up in Edna that she could not let alone. She felt aware of herself for the first time and she would seek it out until she was satisfied with herself. Edna’s awakening was apparently more than she could deal with, though we don’t really know if she intentionally swam out into the ocean to drown herself or if she just swam too far and was unable to swim back. Regardless of that thought Chopin must have intended for the possibility of either happening or she would have made a clear and precise account for Edna’s purpose. Chopin clearly defined each character in Edna’s life and how each one affected her during her awakening. Each one had a role in Edna’s life and played an important part in her awakening.
Works Cited
Kate Chopin. The Awakening. Oxford World Classics
In Kate Chopin's, The Awakening, Edna Pontellier came in contact with many different people during a summer at Grand Isle. Some had little influence on her life while others had everything to do with the way she lived the rest of her life. The influences and actions of Robert Lebrun on Edna led to her realization that she could never get what she wanted, which in turn caused her to take her own life.
This can be shown when Leone says, “ ‘You are burnt beyond recognition’, he added, looking at his wife as one looks at a valuable piece of property which has suffered some damage” (Chopin 2). Throughout the book, we also see that Leonce does not really pay enough attention to Edna. We mostly see him reading newspapers and being busy with his work. “Edna marries a man she does not love, “closing the portals forever behind her upon the realm of romance and dreams” (Wolkenfeld 245). As a result, she realizes that Leonce was not the man for her, and that she must find another way in order free herself from such
Leonce Pontellier, the husband of Edna Pontellier in Kate Chopin's The Awakening, becomes very perturbed when his wife, in the period of a few months, suddenly drops all of her responsibilities. After she admits that she has "let things go," he angrily asks, "on account of what?" Edna is unable to provide a definite answer, and says, "Oh! I don't know. Let me along; you bother me" (108). The uncertainty she expresses springs out of the ambiguous nature of the transformation she has undergone. It is easy to read Edna's transformation in strictly negative terms‹as a move away from the repressive expectations of her husband and society‹or in strictly positive terms‹as a move toward the love and sensuality she finds at the summer beach resort of Grand Isle. While both of these moves exist in Edna's story, to focus on one aspect closes the reader off to the ambiguity that seems at the very center of Edna's awakening. Edna cannot define the nature of her awakening to her husband because it is not a single edged discovery; she comes to understand both what is not in her current situation and what is another situation. Furthermore, the sensuality that she has been awakened to is itself not merely the male or female sexuality she has been accustomed to before, but rather the sensuality that comes in the fusion of male and female. The most prominent symbol of the book‹the ocean that she finally gives herself up to‹embodies not one aspect of her awakening, but rather the multitude of contradictory meanings that she discovers. Only once the ambiguity of this central symbol is understood can we read the ending of the novel as a culmination and extension of the themes in the novel, and the novel regains a...
Her transformation and journey to self-discovery truly begins on the family’s annual summer stay at Grand Isle. “At a very early period she had apprehended instinctively the dual life- that outward existence which conforms, the inward life which questions. That summer at Grand Isle she began to loosen a little of the mantle of reserve that had always enveloped her” (Chopin 26). From that point onward, Edna gains a deeper sense of desire for self-awareness and the benefits that come from such an odyssey. She suddenly feels trapped in her marriage, without being in a passionately romantic relationship, but rather a contractual marriage. Edna questions her ongoing relationship with Leonce; she ponders what the underlying cause of her marriage was to begin with; a forbidden romance, an act of rebellion against her father, or a genuine attraction of love and not lust? While Edna internally questions, she begins to entertain thoughts of other men in her life, eventually leading to sensuous feelings and thoughts related to sexual fantasy imagined through a relationship with Robert Lebrun. Concurrently, Edna wavers the ideas so clearly expected by the society- she analyzes and examines; why must women assimilate to rigid societal standards while men have no such
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.
Throughout Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, Edna Pontellier, the main protagonist, experiences multiple awakenings—the process in which Edna becomes aware of her life and the constraints place on it—through her struggles with interior emotional issues regarding her true identity: the confines of marriage vs. her yearning for intense passion and true love. As Edna begins to experience these awakenings she becomes enlightened of who she truly and of what she wants. As a result, Edna breaks away from what society deems acceptable and becomes awakened to the flaws of the many rules and expected behavior that are considered norms of the time. One could argue that Kate Chopin’s purpose in writing about Edna’s inner struggles and enlightenment was to
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.
In Chopin's Awakening, the reader meets Edna Pontellier, a married woman who attempts to overcome her "fate", to avoid the stereotypical role of a woman in her era, and in doing so she reveals the surrounding. society's assumptions and moral values about women of Edna's time. Edna helps to reveal the assumptions of her society. The people surrounding her each day, particularly women, assume their roles as "housewives"; while the men are free to leave the house, go out at night, gamble, drink and work. Edna surprises her associates when she takes up painting, which represents a working job and independence for Edna.
Regarding the notion of the ‘free will,’ it is clear that the issue of determinism and freedom based on a moral obligation seems probable in life. Precisely, this is because both the first part and second parts are compatible in nature. All the two constituents of the Compatibilism entail liberty and necessity the way David Hume supposed his clear claims, and therefore determinism is considered a true element. However, another philosopher may argue that freedom may exists regardless of the fact that determinism may be not true and still implies a necessity; a moral responsibility. In this regard, I strongly support Hume’s notion of Compatibilism as a plausible concept of the ‘free will,’ and further reasons that the best objection to it is
Edna Pontellier’s character in The Awakening has been the source of the novel’s controversial assessment by critics since it’s publication in 1899. The author, Kate Chopin, officially began writing in 1885 and composed novels that challenged the many conflicting social standards in that time period. The late 1800s, predominantly known for the Industrial Revolution, served as a beacon of opportunity for women during this era. Chopin wrote The Awakening to be used as an instrument to eradicate the accepted impression of gender roles in society: women are more than submissive tools to their oppressive counterparts in this masculine dominated world. Chopin’s ideology originated from the lessons and wisdom of her great-grandmother who encouraged her to read unconventional concepts: women were capable of obtaining and maintaining a successful career as well as a thriving family and social life. Although The Awakening was widely banned and condemned in national presses, critics cannot deny the underlying theme of sexism and its effect on gender roles. Some critics even suggest there is a distinct correlation between Edna’s character and Chopin herself. According to critics, Kate Chopin encumbers The Awakening with incidents of a single woman's hunger for personal and sexual identity as a mechanism to display Edna Pontellier’s deviations from societal standards.
Sacrifices can define one’s character; it can either be the highest dignity or the lowest degradation of the value of one’s life. In The Awakening, Kate Chopin implicitly conveys the sacrifice Edna Pontellier makes in the life which provides insight of her character and attributions to her “awakening.” She sacrificed her past of a lively and youthful life and compressed it to a domestic and reserved lifestyle of housewife picturesque. However, she meets multiple acquaintances who help her express her dreams and true identity. Mrs. Pontellier’s sacrifice established her awakening to be defiant and drift away from the societal role of an obedient mother, as well as, highlighting the difference between society’s expectations of women and women’s
Kate Chopin's novella The Awakening tells the story of Edna Pontellier, a woman who throughout the novella tries to find herself. Edna begins the story in the role of the typical mother-woman distinctive of Creole society but as the novelette furthers so does the distance she puts between herself and society. Edna's search for independence and a way to stray from society's rules and ways of life is depicted through symbolism with birds, clothing, and Edna's process of learning to swim.
The distinction between second order desires and second order volitions can be difficult to grasp, but I shall present my best interpretations of Frankfurt’s readings. Second order volitions are judgements that we make about our desires. One last time, suppose person A is on a diet so he admits a firm resolution about his diet. So he thinks (I should want X) or (I should want to not X). Person A thinks he should want to not eat dessert in his new diet resolution. In saying this, person A is placing a valued judgement about his desires. He is someone who is not just letting his desires pull him one way or another. He is placing a valued and examined judgement about which one of his desires is the desire he wants to constitute his will. In saying “I should want to not eat dessert”, he is saying that there is an important sense in which wanting to not eat dessert more accurately characterizes who he stands for and what his values
Being a woman, she is completely at the mercy of her husband. He provides for her a lifestyle she could not obtain on her own and fixes her place in society. This vulnerability stops Edna from being truly empowered. To gain independence as a woman, and as a person, Edna must relinquish the stability and comfort she finds in the relationship with her husband. Mr. and Mrs. Pontellier's marriage comprises a series of power plays and responds well to Marxist and Feminist Theory. Leonce Pontellier looks "…at his wife as one who looks at a valuable piece of property…". He views her as an accessory that completes the ideal life for him. Edna, however, begins to desire autonomy and independence from Leonce, so true to the feminist point of view.
The problem of free will and determinism is a mystery about what human beings are able to do. The best way to describe it is to think of the alternatives taken into consideration when someone is deciding what to do, as being parts of various “alternative features” (Van-Inwagen). Robert Kane argues for a new version of libertarianism with an indeterminist element. He believes that deeper freedom is not an illusion. Derk Pereboom takes an agnostic approach about causal determinism and sees himself as a hard incompatibilist. I will argue against Kane and for Pereboom, because I believe that Kane struggles to present an argument that is compatible with the latest scientific views of the world.