Gender Sucks

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Up till this point Edna Pontellier has tried her best to fulfill the expectation that has been trained into her since childhood. She has come to realize that she is not able to follow the rules that are expected from the patriarch society. She starts little by little in resisting and not obeying her husband. When Mr. Pontellier start to give her orders, things that she would had normally obeyed, she started to resist trying to be her own woman. Edna felt as if she was a failure. She “failure to marry a man interested in a marriage of equality has made her believe that it would be easier to simply conform” (Kampenberg). Since this Edna has built up enough determination that she is able to not to conform to her husband’s will. She had found herself being just like all the women in Grade Isle, following the roles of the patriarchy society. Edna has sympathy for these women and the capability that they have to destroy their images.
Edna finds herself defying her husband, like she has done in the past with her father by marrying a catholic man that he did not approve of. Edna finds herself to be truer than she was acting to be. Mr. Pontellier was upset by her actions but followed what the doctor advice, “letting her do as she liked” (Chopin 119). This would be the awakening that opens her eyes, that makes her feel as if she has control over herself. Carley Rees Bogard says that, “Her first effort to assert herself, her first act of rebellion is to refuse to make love to her husband for whom she has never felt a desire”. Although, “too much emphasis has been placed on her sexual experience and not enough attention has been paid to her other efforts to become a person in her own right…” (Bogard). Edna starts to show that she believes t...

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...uties. Edna cries nightly because of how depressed she is in her life, “She could not have told why she was crying. Such experiences as the foregoing were not uncommon kin her married life” (Chopin 14). Edna always had concerns with the roles of the patriarchal woman, now she has a terrible time trying to play the role of an accommodating woman.

Works Cited

Work Citied
Beer, Janet. Kate Chopin, Edith Wharton, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman: studies in short fiction. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1997. Print.
Chopin, Kate. The Awakening. New York: Avon, 1972. Print.
Kampenberg, Kristin. "Edna’s Failure to Find Her Female Role in Kate Chopin’s The Awakening." (2006): n. pag. Web. 16 Feb. 2014.
Ray, Suranjita. "Understanding Patriarchy." (n.d.): n. pag. Web. 16 Feb. 2014.
Tierney, Helen. Women's Studies Encyclopedia. Vol. 2. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1999. Print.

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