Feminism In The Awakening

    "How do you honor the deepest truth you know?" --Ram Das        In order to honor one's deepest truth, one must first discover what that truth is and then apply that truth to everyday life.  The life of Edna Pontellier in The Awakening signifies the search, discovery, and application of an individual's deepest truth.  Edna, a wealthy New Orleans housewife, at first attempts to find the deepest truth about herself by conforming to society's norms.  She marries a well-respected man, Leonce, and bears him children.  However, Edna discovers that she wants more out of life; something about her marriage is not allowing her to achieve fulfillment.  Through her relationships,

The characterization of Edna is key to understanding the novel. As portrayed to the readers, Edna Pontellier is sympathetic character. Edna is found at the beginning of the novel in a sort of semi-conscious state. She is comfortable in her marriage to Léonce and unaware of her own feelings and ambitions. Edna was always a hopeless romantic, enamored with men of all types.

In The Awakening, Adele is a pivotal character in causing Edna’s awakening but another character I view as the most pivotal and significant in causing Edna’s awakening is Leonce Pontellier. Mr. Pontellier constantly views Edna as his finest possession and disregards all feelings she has almost as if he is taking care of her like a pet. In essence pampering her with money and gifts similar to how a pet owner gives their pet treat, in return he expects a well behaved wife that will follow through his every command, such as when a pet does tricks for their owner on command. The earliest examples of this pet treatment in the book is when Mr Pontellier comes home from Klein’s hotel and awakens Edna from her slumber just to express how his night at the hotel went while she was left behind. Without regard to the fact that she was

In the iconic debated novel “The Awakening”, Kate Chopin’s novel takes place in the Victorian Era, which is in the 19th- century, similarly the novel was published in 1899. Edna is depicted as a woman longing for more, a woman who was looking for more than just a life of complacency and living in the eyes of society. The story uses Edna to exemplify the expectations of women during this era. For example, a woman’s expression of independence was considered immoral. Edna was expected to conform to the expectations of society but the story reveals Edna’s desires which longed for independence in a state of societal dominance. Throughout The Awakening, Chopin’s most significant symbol,

She married Leonce not because she loved him but because she could not refuse his admiration and persistence. This marriage thrusts Edna into a foreign culture. She questions her role as a mother because she is different from the typical Creole "mother-woman." Edna defies the central perception that women are mothers first

Finally, Edna’s vulnerability to love and passion serves as a major contributing factor to her “defeat and regression” in the sense that it directly impacted some aspects of her despair and desire to escape from reality. The narrator reveals in Chapter VII, “[Edna’s] marriage to Leonce Pontellier was purely an accident,” (Chopin, 24). She simply becomes caught up in a moment of passion and impulsiveness, satisfied at the fact that her marriage would upset both her father and sister. In this sense, her rushing into marriage without a basis of love may be the root of her depressive episodes. Additionally, after Robert leaves for Mexico, Edna becomes overly anxious to receive letters from him, actually breaking into tears upon finally laying her eyes upon a letter from Robert addressed to Mademoiselle Reisz (Chopin, 86-87). This is a prime example of Edna’s vulnerability to love; her emotions are controlled by her “lover’s” presence and lack thereof, influencing and even worsening her sudden moments of dread and despair. Also, Edna succumbs to seduction by Alcee Arobin’s charm, first with a kiss (Chopin, 112) and then through sleeping with Arobin (Chopin, 125). Edna’s adulterous actions with Arobin are representative of the independent will she now possesses and has displayed in the past in her

In the essay, Chopin's The Awakening, Platizky writes that “while one could argue she was just shy or introverted, Edna's sweeping passions later in the novel suggest the introversion may have been imposed.” (Platizky, Roger). While this is true that Edna has sweeping passions later in the novel, it is not correlated to Edna wanting to block something from her memory, such as sexual violence. While someone could insist that Edna’s mood swings are suggesting the protagonist “is trying to block something more than just her realization that she is unhappy in her present marriage” (Platizky), that information is extremely faulty. Instead, Edna’s mood swings deal with the oppression of the patriarchal society that women were thrown into during this time period. Each woman was supposed to lack individuality and obey the men, especially in the Creole Catholic society. Edna’s lack of cooperation towards this norm shows up often in The Awakening.

The ending of Kate Chopin’s The Awakening is both controversial and thought provoking. Many see Edna Pontellier’s suicide as the final stage of her “awakening”, and the only way that she will ever be able to truly be free. Edna’s suicide, however, is nothing more than her final attempt to escape from her life. Edna Pontellier’s life has become too much for her to handle, and by committing suicide she is simply escaping the oppression she feels from her marriage, the suppression she feels from her children, and the failure of her relationship with Robert.

In The Awakening, Kate Chopin creates a protagonist that clearly demonstrates a feminist. The protagonist, Edna Pontellier seeks more from life than what she is living and starts to refuse the standards of the society she lives in. Edna has many moments of awakening resulting in creating a new person for herself. She starts to see the life of freedom and individuality she wants to live. The Awakening encourages feminism as a way for women to obtain freedom and choose individuality over conformity. Chopin creates a feminist story that shows a transformation from an obedient “mother-woman” to a woman who is willing to sacrifice her old life to become independent and make an identity for herself.

Kate Chopin's novel The Awakening in the opening chapter provides the argument for women's entrapment in roles that society has forced upon them. Chopin was not just trying to write an entertaining story but trying to convey arguments against these social injustices. Women are like these birds trapped in these cages unable to free themselves from these imposed roles by society.

As the title of the novel reveals, awakenings are the most important as well as the most emotional parts of the story. Edna slowly awakens to her true self. She begins "daily casting aside that fictitious self which we assume like a garment with which to appear before the world." She creates her own awakenings with dreams and paintings (Gilbert 104). It is as if she tried to begin again, making a life that she could control and to become a new woman and be herself rather than what she was expected to be. Edna's awakenings were all a part of her defining her own self(Rosowski 44). She feared to have the conventional life that so many women had become trapped in. As she awakens, Edna becomes less and less traditional by stripping

Whether coerced or through self realizations, there were many awakenings in the book. The first was that Edna was not the traditional mother like Adèle, the second was that she enjoyed doing things for herself instead of for her children and husband. This second awakening is shown when Edna takes time to talk

When Edna receives gifts from Mr. Pontellier she is forced to realize that she loves him, yet what she also realizes is that she truly does not love him. In her romance with Robert, she feels great affection and love for him. He as well feels that same for her, yet he cannot corrupt the union of marriage by being with Edna so he decides to leave and not further the relationship. Edna’s inability to attain

She was pressured to marry Leonce by her father and older sister. Along with marriage came the pressure to have children. She is forced into these roles but never actually succumbs to them. Edna not only has Madame Ratignolle's friendship and her marriage to wake her up to her dreams and emotions, her affairs wake up to her desires. The way the different male characters treat her reminds her that she will never happily fit into the role of a wife and mother, therefore awakening her.

In the beginning of the novel, Edna seems to have the perfect life— she is wealthy, beautiful, married, and the mother of two little boys. Yet, she is unhappy. Throughout the novel, it becomes increasingly obvious of Edna’s difficulty in the field of marriage. She is married to Leonce Pontellier, who is, by the standards of his day, considered the perfect husband. He makes a good living, is a popular figure in society, and gives Edna plenty of money and gifts. However, he expects Edna to be a perfect wife in return— a woman who takes care of the house, dotes on her children, and keeps up with