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Did you know that 81% of Americans feel they have a book in them? That the life they’ve experienced, sprouted, and learned countless lessons from gives them the initiative to write. That's exactly what Kate Chopin had in mind when she wrote the book, “The Awakening.” In, “The Awakening” Chopin writes about the culture she lived in, the situations she went through, and the feelings she felt in the society.
“The Awakening” takes place in the setting of Louisiana, or as the book mentions it, Grand Isle, a town in Louisiana, and New Orleans, a city in Louisiana. For Chopin’s life, a source claims, “In 1870 she married Oscar Chopin, a wealthy Creole cotton factor, and moved with him to New Orleans.” (Encyclopedia of World Biography par. 3). This
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For the culture aspect, in the book you frequently learn about the creole culture. Chopin approaches this by writing about Mrs. Pontellier’s experience as she marries a Creole and is surrounded by people of that culture, however this was an entirely new way of living since both Mrs. Pontellier and Chopin came from different societies until their marriages. In Chopin’s life a source explains, “For the next decade, Chopin pursued the demanding social and domestic schedule of a Southern aristocrat, her recollections of which would later serve as material for her short stories.” (Encyclopedia of World Biography par. 3). In this time period, women are very domestic to their husbands and their only purpose is to submit to him and raise the children. Chopin gives many details on all the constraints that Edna had to …show more content…
From all this chaos, Edna is consistently trying to find and express herself. She has a strong feeling towards being set free and the importance of herself to her. “I would give up the unessential; I would give my money, I would give my life for my children; but I wouldn’t give myself. I can’t make it more clear; it’s only something which I am beginning to comprehend, which is revealing itself to me.” (47). What Edna is stating, is much deeper than a simple feeling on how she would not give herself away for her children. She’s expressing her emotions on the creativity of feministic thoughts and feels who you are as your own person is essential. Another example is, "You have been a very, very foolish boy, wasting your time dreaming of impossible things when you speak of Mr. Pontellier setting me free! I am no longer one of Mr. Pontellier's possessions to dispose of or not. I give myself where I choose. If he were to say, 'Here, Robert, take her and be happy; she is yours,' I should laugh at you both." (108). This shows Edna again exploring feminist thoughts and the feeling that she is not an object. Kate Chopin shows many of the same feelings and readers see this through characters like Edna and other literary sources. As an article states, “Chopin herself stood naked in her exploration of female creativity
Even at the end, the reader is still left with the question of whether Edna has truly found a setting in which she can finally be herself. Many readers would argue that Edna finds this niche in her seaside vacation home on Grand Isle. To Edna, the sea is a wide expanse of opportunity and liberation from the constricting socialite world of French Quarter New Orleans. Chopin's lavish descriptions of the sea give us an insight into its powerful effect on Edna: The voice of the sea is seductive; never ceasing, whis... ...
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).
Essentially, Edna is not able to fulfill any of the roles that are presented by Chopin in the novel: mother, sister, daughter, wife, friend, artist, lover to either man, and finally the traditional role of a woman in society. She does not quite fit into any niche, and thus her suicide at the end of the novel is the only way for Edna’s story to end. Chopin must have Edna die, as she cannot survive in this restrained society in which she does not belong to. The idea of giving yourself completely to serve another, Edna declares “that she would never sacrifice herself for her children, or for any one” (47). However, her awakening is also a realization of her underprivileged position in a male dominated society. The first sign that Edna is becoming comfortable with herself, and beginning to loosen the constrictions of not being an individual is when she asks Robert, her husband, to retrieve her shawl: "When he returned with the shawl she took it and kept it in her hand. She did not put it around her" (30). Edna is trying to establish herself as an artist in a society where there is no tradition of women as creative beings. For any woman to suggest a desire for a role outside the domestic sphere, as more than a mother or housewife, was perceived as
Kate Chopin uses characterization to help you understand the character of Edna on how she empowers and improves the quality of life. Edna becomes an independent women as a whole and enjoys her new found freedom. For example, Chopin uses the following quote to show you how she begins enjoying her new found freedom.”The race horse was a friend and intimate association of her
The novel The Awakening is written by Kate Chopin in 1899 which shocked the readers with its honest treatment of female infidelity. Edna Pontellier is a married woman that is trapped in a stifling marriage. She then seeks to find the love and freedom that she desires with Robert Lebrun and Alcee Arobin. She broke her role of an ideal “mother woman” in her society and discover her true identity as being independent and passionate about what she desires.
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.
Franklin continues the argument that Edna is an example of the “labor toward self of the female hero with the accompanying inner and outer threats to attainment of selfhood” (Franklin 510) in her criticism The Awakening and the Failure of Psyche. Franklin also compares Edna’s character to a mythological figure; the comparison proves how it is “clear that heroism is necessary for the nascent self to resist the lure and power of unconscious” (Franklin 510). To first address Franklin’s discussion of Edna’s fight to become a female hero, it’s displayed in the criticism that Edna’s individuality is one of a matriarchal society. However, as Franklin proves, Edna wants are different than her actions because she “begins to play with different love roles, such as courtly love” (Franklin 514). Edna is then said to be a sexually awakened being because of her dabbling in different love roles as well as her idealism in her new relationships; although, her new sexual being comes with a cost because she, as said by Franklin, falls into the “narrow roles prescribed by the patriarchs” (Franklin 520). This struggle, as identified by Franklin, adds to the darkness in her emerging ego out of the stifling atmosphere. The criticism then elaborates on how the stifling atmosphere brings Edna to believe that there is a whimsical love in her journey individuation, but instead “Chopin now wishes [the readers] to see that Edna has a crucial choice to make: either to accept the fantastic nature of romantic love and continue on her solitary journey to self, or to refuse to acknowledge romantic love’s transient nature and embrace death” (Franklin 524). Franklin identifies Edna’s labor to find a balance between love and individuality as one similar to both the spirits of Psyche and Eros; they each have a continually struggle to strive towards two different passionate loves. Franklin explains that much like Psyche’s yearning, Edna’s infatuation with Robert is one in which
Additionally, Edna’s sacrifice helped her established an identity for herself. “I would give up the unessential; I would give my money, I would give my life for my children; but I wouldn’t give myself, I can’t make it more clear; it’s only something which I am beginning to comprehend, which is revealing itself to me” (Chopin 57). She realizes how much she valued herself and how she would handle herself. As well as, this emphasizes on the meaning of The Awakening, of how women are able to define themselves as something more than a
The novel The Awakening, written by Kate Chopin, sparked much controversy among the nation with topics of marital infidelity and most importantly, gender roles. This story set in Louisiana, centered on around a woman that questions and fails to meet societies standards, as well as roles as a wife and mother. Her failures and struggles as a woman allow us to gain a better understanding about gender roles in the late 1800s.
Elizabeth Fox Genovese of Emory University shared in a PBS interview that “She [Kate Chopin] was very important as one of the earliest examples of modernism in the United States or, if you wish, the cutting edge of modernism in American literature” (PBS – Interviews). Kate Chopin published At Fault, her first novel, in 1890 and The Awakening, her last novel, in 1898 (Guilds 924). During these years Chopin wrote numerous other works and most, like At Fault and The Awakening, centered around upper-middle class Creole or French women involved in womanly uncertainties; such as, extramarital affairs, acceptable behavior in society for females, duties as a wife, responsibilities as a mother, and religious beliefs. Chopin was an extraordinary woman, and no indication was made, during the investigation of this research paper, reflecting her having regrets regarding her position as a wife or mother. This document is an attempt at comparing the issues the main characters experienced and presenting Chopin’s unique skill in writing about the culture she observed during her years of living in Louisiana. The tragedy of this author’s existence is that during her life the literary world did not recognize such exceptional skill.
Central Lib. Fort Worth, TX -. 11 Feb. 2003 Dawson, Hugh J. & Co. "Kate Chopin's The Awakening: A Dissenting Opinion. " American Literary Realism 26.2 (1994):18.
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...
The Awakening, a novel by Kate Chopin (born Kate O’Flaherty) takes place in Louisiana in the late nineteenth century. At age twenty, Kate O’Flaherty, married Oscar Chopin. He was the son of a wealthy cotton grower in Louisiana. He cherished her tremendously. “By all accounts he adored his wife, admired her independence and intelligence, and "allowed" her unheard of freedom” (Wyatt). Eventually the Chopin family had to move back to Oscar Chopin’s old home in Louisiana from New Orleans. After twelve years of marriage and the birth of six children, Oscar Chopin died of swamp fever in 1982. Three years later her mother died. Kate Chopin was all too aware of tragedy. Her novel, The Awakening, is the story of a New Orleans woman who was infamous in the French Quarter. Thematic elements from her own life appear in the novel: identity, gender roles, love, and the individual
Chopin, fatherless at four, was certainly a product of her Creole heritage, and was strongly influenced by her mother and her maternal grandmother. Perhaps it is because she grew up in a female dominated environment that she was not a stereotypical product of her times and so could not conform to socially acceptable themes in her writing. Chopin even went so far as to assume the managerial role of her husband's business after he died in 1883. This behavior, in addition to her fascination with scientific principles, her upbringing, and her penchant for feminist characters would seem to indicate that individuality, freedom, and joy were as important to Chopin as they are to the characters in her stories. Yet it appears to be as difficult for critics to agree on Chopin's view of her own life as it is for them to accept the heroines of her stories. Per Seyersted believes that Chopin enjoyed living alone as an independent writer, but other critics have argued that Chopin was happily married and bore little resemblance to the characters in her stories (150-164).
In America, the 1890s were a decade of tension and social change. A central theme in Kate Chopin’s fiction was the independence of women. In Louisiana, most women were their husband’s property. The codes of Napoleon were still governing the matrimonial contract. Since Louisiana was a Catholic state, divorce was rare and scandalous. In any case, Edna Pontellier of Chopin had no legal rights for divorce, even though Léonce undoubtedly did. When Chopin gave life to a hero that tested freedom’s limits, she touched a nerve of the politic body. However, not Edna’s love, nor her artistic inner world, sex, or friendship can reconcile her personal growth, her creativity, her own sense of self and her expectations. It is a very particular academic fashion that has had Edna transformed into some sort of a feminist heroine. If she could have seen that her awakening in fact was a passion for Edna herself, then perhaps her suicide would have been avoided. Everyone was forced to observe, including the cynics that only because a young