How The Yellow-Wallpaper and The Awakening Influenced America's View on Women

Throughout most of her life, Edna Pontellier’s true self was majorly suppressed by her husband, as well as her duties as a mother, and society’s image of

During the late nineteenth century, the time of protagonist Edna Pontellier, a woman's place in society was confined to worshipping her children and submitting to her husband. Kate Chopin's novel, The Awakening, encompasses the frustrations and the triumphs in a woman's life as she attempts to cope with these strict cultural demands. Defying the stereotype of a "mother-woman," Edna battles the pressures of 1899 that command her to be a subdued and devoted housewife. Although Edna's ultimate suicide is a waste of her struggles against an oppressive society, The Awakening supports and encourages feminism as a way for women to obtain sexual freedom, financial independence, and individual identity.

As with her religious faith, Edna has viewed her domestic life with the same unquestioning attitude.  Her entire adult life has been driven along by the force of habit.  She marries, has children, engages in appropriate hobbies and accepts what society deems standard for a woman of her class because it is expected and normal.  Only in the months in which this story takes place does Edna once again begin to question her complacency.  She begins “to realize her position in the universe as a human being, and to recognize her relations as an individual to the world within and about her” (14).

Edna Pontellier is a woman of great needs. Although she has a husband who cares for her and two children, she is very unhappy. She plays her roles as a mother and wife often, but still keeps doing things unmarried, barren women should do: enjoy the company of other men, ignore her children's cries, dress unladylike for the times. The story is set in the late 1800's, when women were to be in the kitchen preparing a meal for their family, giving birth to more children to help with daily chores, or sitting quietly at home, teaching the children while the husband was at work. Edna Pontellier was a woman not of her time. At only 28, she would have rather been out gallivanting with different men, traveling with them, and painting

In The Awakening by Kate Chopin, the main character, Edna constantly struggles to become what her husband’s expectations of her role as a female are. Edna is supposed to be a wonderful mother and a perfect wife at all times however, she would rather have a life free from pre-definition. Unfortunately, in the late nineteenth century, when women were born they became property of their fathers, and once married property of their husbands; there was no time in Edna’s life that was just her own to decide and take pleasure in. Instead, Edna chose a different path, the only option she could: rebelling against the man who pushed her into domesticity by having an affair. Edna’s husband and the culture of Creole in 1890 still have their deathly grip

In the Victorian Era an ideal american woman was to be quiet, domestic, obedient, and beautiful. A woman’s role was to take care of children and accommodated guest all while directing glory to her husband was considered her most important duty. The illustration of this theme in americanism was brought to attention by the inner struggles of Edna Pontellier when it came to her domestic life and her duties to her children and husband and the reaction of her peers when she tries to escape them.. Mrs. Pontellier felt trapped in her home life: feeling more like a possession than a person and was met with shock and disdain when she expressed her unhappiness with her life. This reaction of disdain and shock shows how unusual and frowned it was for women to seek a major source of joy outside of her domestic

All of these women are deepened by society's perception. In The Awakening by Kate Chopin, Edna comes to realize her perceived role in society is demeaning herself fulfillment and personality. Society perceives women as defined by the title of “wife” or “mother”. Edna doesn’t want to be defined by labels, but by her individualism. The story shows how Edna conflicts internally about how she can be herself, but not an exile of society like Mademoiselle Reisz.

In the novel, Edna is shown to have no ability to be a good mother and a wife, which was the only “duty” of women. The “mother woman” was described as someone “who idolized their children, worshiped their husbands, and esteemed it a holy privilege to efface themselves as individuals and grow wings as ministering angels”. But Edna did not fit this description. She realized the way she was living her life was not the way she wanted to live. Therefore, she broke many so-called “norms” of the society by making her own decisions.

John, the son of her caretaker, gets Jane in trouble just because he can. His belief in his superiority causes Jane to profess her true thoughts. Jane is being punished by the reeds when she thinks to herself, “I resisted all the way: a new thing for me, and a circumstance which greatly strengthened the bad opinion Bessie and Miss Abbot were disposed to entertain of me” (13). Jane is blatantly ignoring the thoughts of others. She cares more about what she wants and less about the wants of others.

Psychosocial conflict is a harrowing reality that beleaguers many women who struggle with social identities and role confusion. Women are constantly battling against societal structures that carries the notation that once women bear children or enter in marriage they no longer have their own identity. Although, society is incognizant not only to the toxicity of psychosocial conflict but how copious the stress is when the internal (self) and external (society) are conflicting. The conflicting stress tend to led to pernicious effects such as mental health issues or even death. In The Awakening, Edna Pontellier endure a constant battle with the Victorian society to achieve her American Dream, all the way down to the tragic end.

Literature changes as current events change and as the structure of society begins to shift. American feminist literature started to become prevalent during the Victorian era, or around the latter part of the 19th century. This is the time when the first wave of feminism in the United States hit. The Seneca Falls Convention - the first women’s rights convention - and the emergence of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony’s American Equal Rights Association in the middle of the 19th century are among some of the noteable events that sparked this movement in literature. Women across America were inspired by the changing of the times, and that is reflected in many American female authors’ writings.

Then there were the single women. People believed that since they didn’t have husbands or children to look after, that they were lonely and miserable women. In reality they could have been very friendly and loving women. But since they didn’t fill their roles in society, there had to be something wrong with them. They were often ostracized unless they had a “useful talent”. Then there were women like Edna. Edna Pontellier was the main character of The Awakening. Edna completely rebelled against all of the standards set for her by society. When the novel took place, Edna already had a husband and kids to take care of. After a long period of time of simply thinking about her life, Edna decided to do what not many women around her ever had the courage to do. Edna decided to leave her husband and kids to live a life as an independent woman. This was completely against what she was supposed to do. Edna was one of many women who began to decide that she was no longer willing to accept the role that society attempted to force her into. (Chopin)

By developing unconventional female characters that defied social customs, Jane Austen utilized her literary pieces as a framework to critique misogynist beliefs formed by society. Living in a patriarchal society dominated by men and harsh gender roles in England, Jane Austen sought to transform cultural values. She used the ideology of marriage and her heroines’ refusal of courtship to effectively and strategically chastise sexist views on gender and marriage. Her development of defiant characters showcases her strong opposition towards the restricting beliefs placed upon women. Although the majority of her female protagonists challenged social norms, they still chose their happiness and wellbeing above all — even if it conformed to society’s demanding expectations of them.

To begin, women have been denied self-articulation which affected their day by day lives. Primarily, in The Awakening, a character Edna Pontellier would attempt to outperform the average housewife

John Henrik Clarke once said, “To hold people in oppression you have to convince them first that they are supposed to be oppressed.” The normality of women’s oppression affects the psyche and in return creates a number of mental illnesses within the nineteenth-century era. In The Awakening and “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Chopin and Gilman utilize setting and foils to illustrate the role gender oppression contributes to mental illness.