The Confinement Of Women In Society In Kate Chopin's The Awakening

1322 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: The yellow wallpaper essay

Sophia Corriere Ms. Corporan English 11 HH 19 December, 2014 The Confinement of Women in Society in The Awakening Throughout history there have been strict guidelines placed on women. Women are supposed to remain in their domestic sphere, cooking, cleaning, and taking care of their children. In The Awakening, Edna marries her husband Léonce out of practicality, she has come to the point in her life where a women is to get married. The strict guidelines placed on her by society push her into a loveless, idle marriage. Edna must now continue with this marriage forever, “idly, aimlessly, unthinking, and unguided”(Chopin 16). Kate Chopin’s The Awakening explores the oppression of women in a patriarchal society where women are constantly defeated. Throughout The Awakening, Edna faces oppression from her husband, children, and society. It is her duty, as a women, to get married and have children with her husband. Edna’s …show more content…

While this stereotype might have once been true, it has now placed bounds on women which are difficult to escape. Male-dominated society has constantly abused and defeated women, which is shown in the works; The Awakening, Women in Economics, A Room of One’s Own, and Why I Wrote The Yellow Wallpaper. Women in Economics focuses on the vicious cycle of tradition which women are unable to escape. A Room of One’s Own states that women, who are of equal caliber to men, cannot compete against them in society and are consistently shut down. Why I Wrote the Yellow Wallpaper explains that male-dominated society purposely tries to stop women from succeeding. The Awakening connects to all three of these pieces in that Edna’s constant confinement from society and her husband, Léonce, results in her death. A women can not compete against patriarchy, all four sources exemplify that patriarchy always

Show More
Related

  • Identity and Society's Expectations In Kate Chopin’s The Awakening

    598 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Social Expectations In The Awakening

    1058 Words  | 3 Pages

    Throughout the novel The Awakening, Edna discovers her own identity, independent of her husband and children, and realizes that she is discontent in her roles as wife and mother. According to BBC, “During the reign of Queen Victoria, a woman's place was in the home, as domesticity and motherhood were considered by society at large to be a sufficient emotional fulfillment for females.” There were very few women who were working elsewhere besides at home, because in society the husbands were the breadwinners in the family. A man’s job was to earn money

    Read More

  • Conflicting Directions Of Ambitions in Kate Chopin's The Awakening

    419 Words  | 1 Pages

    In “The Awakening,'; the conflicting directions of oppression versus free will illuminate the meanings of social awakening and overcoming tyranny. Awakening from the slumber of patriarchal social convention, Edna must rouse herself from the life of dullness she has always lived.

    Read More

  • Gender Inequality: A Glance at the Industrial Revolution

    1041 Words  | 3 Pages

    During the American Industrial Revolution, women began to work in factories, leading to conflicts in 19th century society that would eventually result in the Cult of Domesticity—the belief that women’s only responsibilities existed at home. This aimed to establish the subservient woman and the husband as the master of the house as the social norm. Kate Chopin's bleak but realistic depiction in her work, The Awakening, reveals her reasonable attitude during the Second Great Awakening in American history. Men coveted control and achieved it by undermining women and being their superior. Society followed a mob mentality and accepted gender inequality as a social norm. Subjugation of women lead to panic and mania in men and the oppression made

    Read More

  • The True Identity In Kate Chopin's The Awakening

    1882 Words  | 4 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Turning Point For Women In Kate Chopin's The Awakening

    1264 Words  | 3 Pages

    Clara Barton, founder of the American Red Cross, was a game changer in both the Civil War and modern war efforts. Not only did Barton introduce new ways of bringing care to wounded soldiers, she also transformed the ways people viewed women working on the battlefield. Clara Barton was the first woman to stand up for the better of both soldiers on the battlefield and women in the working force. Similar to Clara Barton, Kate Chopin’s protagonist Edna Pontellier, in her novel, The Awakening, serves as a turning point in the Victorian Era for women through her feminist ideals and rebellions against the norms of society. For example, Edna pursues herself as an individual rather than conforming to the expectations of the world around her. Edna also pushes the envelope by exploring her sexuality, a scandalous action for a married woman in the

    Read More

  • Awakening

    2436 Words  | 5 Pages

    Most marriages end in divorce. Indeed, the degree and level of suffering and pain throughout the populace is almost unfathomable. Perhaps, Ms. Chopin was living out a vicarious reality through Edna in committing suicide...and perhaps, this may be the underlying reason for the great reception which this novel has enjoyed...as well as staying power. Similarly, it has also been appointed a kind of jewel of the vanguard of women's rights. Indeed, "The Awakening" is one novel which exemplifies the attempt -- even realization -- of American womanhood's escape from personal and domestic bondage.

    Read More

  • Female Characters In Kate Chopin's The Awakening

    1402 Words  | 3 Pages

    Over the span of our short years we meet people who create a way for us to even better express ourselves, thoughts, and our character. These people are a catalyst to our personality and most often make us better as a person. On the other hand we also meet people whose personalities are stifling, repressing, and/or controlling of ours. These people are anchors, and are known to metaphorically put the real us in a cage. Throughout the course of Kate Chopin’s The Awakening we see that many of the male characters approach Edna and that they each tried to either repress, or control Edna in some way shape or form.

    Read More

  • The Role Of Women In The Awakening By Kate Chopin

    717 Words  | 2 Pages

    Kate Chopin wrote in a period of time where women were standing up for there right. In other words, women’s curiosity grew more and more while she was taking away there liberties, the more they take away the more the curiosity grew. Kate Chopin was born in 1851 in Catherine O’Flaherty, she was a marry woman with six children and later widow. She stared writing novels, which was offensive to men, that’s why she never had a chance to publish them, after later she finally did. Chopin wrote a lot of fictional stories which help change the point or view of women in society. One of the novels called The Awakening written in 1899, a story of adultery and sexuality which was badly criticizes by other readers of how she portrayed women in the novels. No thought later in the time she was recognizing by the feminist scholar lecture. The next story called The Storm, probably publish at the same time as the novel The Awakening, which in reality she did not intended to publish. The novel The Storm talks about a woman that committed adultery which ones occur, no one got hurt at the end.

    Read More

  • Feminism And Criticism In Kate Chopin's The Awakening

    1446 Words  | 3 Pages

    Kate Chopin’s short novel, The Awakening, was published in 1899, five years before her death. The Awakening follows Edna Pontellier as she navigates through the summer and fall of her twenty-eighth year. She learns to swim, engages in two extramarital affairs, moves out of her husband’s house, and, upon hearing of her lover, Robert’s rejection, she drowns herself. For over fifty years, The Awakening has been heralded as a deeply feminist text. Chopin destabilizes traditional family values and puts a woman in a position of sexual power and quasi-liberation. The feminism of this text is complicated by Edna’s final action. Edna’s inability to continue living after being rejected by Robert would indicate a feminine dependence on a masculine figure,

    Read More

  • Childhood Experiences in The Awakening by Kate Chopin

    1810 Words  | 4 Pages

    In Kate Chopin’s novel, The Awakening, her protagonist, Edna Pontellier, a displaced woman of the 19th century lives a life influenced by the men in her society. Edna, a stranger in her own home, has a difficult time accepting traditional roles in society and her role as a mother. People of society in 19th century America, especially in the New Orleans, stigmatized women who felt the need to leave the home and disregard their duties as unacceptable ladies. Evidently Edna is looked down upon for her erratic behavior. In order to be accepted in her community Edna feels the need to live a life she is not content with. However, she soon realizes that she will not allow herself to deviate from her passion in order to satisfy people other than herself. This awareness comes from her interactions with the men around her, for they each teach her something about herself. They unearth her utter dissatisfaction with the restrictions placed on her by society and even her growing sexual awareness. Men, from the likes of her father to her lover, each play a pivotal part in Edna’s awakening.

    Read More

  • Breaking the Social Norms: Kate Chopin's The Awakening

    1558 Words  | 4 Pages

    ...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.

    Read More

  • feminaw Suicide as the Only Alternative for Edna Pontellier in The Awakening

    945 Words  | 2 Pages

    Critics of Kate Chopin's The Awakening tend to read the novel as the dramatization of a woman's struggle to achieve selfhood--a struggle doomed failure either because the patriarchal conventions of her society restrict freedom, or because the ideal of selfhood that she pursue is a masculine defined one that allows for none of the physical and undeniable claims which maternity makes upon women. Ultimately. in both views, Edna Pontellier ends her life because she cannot have it both ways: given her time, place, and notion of self, she cannot be a mother and have a self. (Simons)

    Read More

  • Gender Roles In 'The Awakening' By Kate Chopin

    1474 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Madness And Madness In Kate Chopin's The Awakening

    872 Words  | 2 Pages

    Edna marries her husband, not out of love, but out of expectation of society and her family’s dislike of him. She is a young woman when they marry; she has never had a great romance. The closest thing to passion she

    Read More

More about The Confinement Of Women In Society In Kate Chopin's The Awakening

Open Document