Individuality In The Awakening

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

Edna Pontellier's suicide is the unfortunate pit falling of this otherwise feminist piece of literature. Her action, in fact, completely discredits the classification of feminism. Regardless of her ability to withdraw from her husband, venture out on her own, and buy her own home, Edna lacks a very

The Awakening, by Kate Chopin, is the story of a woman who is seeking freedom. Edna Pontellier feels confined in her role as mother and wife and finds freedom in her romantic interest, Robert Lebrun. Although she views Robert as her liberator, he is the ultimate cause of her demise. Edna sees Robert as an image of freedom, which brings her to rebel against her role in society. This pursuit of freedom, however, causes her death. Chopin uses many images to clarify the relationship between Robert and Edna and to show that Robert is the cause of both her freedom and her destruction.

The humanly gift of imagination is a unique power within that subconsciously is a locomotor to both the body and spirit to a person 's individual Elysium. It goes far and beyond our cognition into an exuberant fantasy molded by our wants and desires, reaching untamed worlds. Turning imagination into realism is denounced as an impossible being, but it 's in fact the awakening to our lucid dreaming. Edna Pontellier is a woman with a heart that soared beyond the horizons into a limitless world, forced into cage by the inevitable way of life. Kate Chopin through the beautifully sculpted novel “The Awakening” condemned Edna with a mindset beyond her years, finding meaning through her unsocial actions shunned by the eyes of others. Edna used her

Throughout The Awakening, a novel by Kate Chopin, the main character, Edna Pontellier showed signs of a growing depression. There are certain events that hasten this, events which eventually lead her to suicide.

society conflict through gender roles. Like Chopin’s character Edna, she struggles with trying to be a part of a life she does not want to be a part of. Edna declares that she is not a possession which contradicted the Louisiana Laws during the 20th century. “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 Pontellier’s possession’s to dispose of or not. I give myself where I choose. If he were to say; Hey, Robert, take her and be happy; she is yours; I should laugh at your both.” (Chopin, 42) Just as Edna felt like her femininity was limited women such as Dottie Henson and Doris Murphy who played for the first female baseball team. Dottie and some of her teammates got hounded about playing the sport like Mae Mordobito, Ellen Sue Got lander, and Doris Murphy. Quoted by a man in the stands he dances trying to betray himself as a woman saying “Girls don’t play baseball.” This taunt makes the women angry hence why Ellen Sue throws a baseball at the man. Both Edna and the women in the film entered this stage of independency but yet were still reminded of their duties as women. Though they had dreams and beliefs society wouldn’t let them be fully independent which motivated many women if not all to fight for their rights during the late 19th century and during the 20th

1. Edna’s position in life is a wife and mother as well as being a trophy wife for her husband; she is someone that he can show off and shower with gifts in return for her undying affection. It appears he is greatly concerned with her appearance more than how she feels when he comments that she is “burnt beyond recognition” while “looking at his wife as one looks at a valuable piece of personal property which has suffered some damage”(4). Edna is expected to carry out duties that fall under the Cult of Domesticity, such as caring for her children, tending to house orders, ensuring that she is always respectable-looking and ready for visitors. Mr. Pontellier

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

Respect for Autonomy This paper will explore the principle of autonomy and how it can be applied to those with mental illnesses or deficits. Autonomy is something that people often take for granted. People live their day to day lives making decisions for themselves.

The Awakening was a very exciting and motivating story. It contains some of the key motivational themes that launched the women’s movement. It was incredible to see how women were not only oppressed, but how they had become so accustomed to it, that they were nearly oblivious to the oppression. The one woman, Edna Pontellier, who dared to have her own feelings was looked upon as being mentally ill. The pressure was so great, that in the end, the only way that she felt she could be truly free was to take her own life.  In this paper I am going to concentrate on the characters central in Edna’s life and her relationships with them.

In “‘A Language Which Nobody Understood’: Emancipatory Strategies in The Awakening,” Patricia Yaeger questions the feminist assumption that Edna Pontellier’s adulterous behavior represent a radical challenge to patriarchal values. Using a deconstructionist method, Yaeger argues that in the novel adultery functions not as a disrupting agent of, but, rather, as a counterweight to the institution of marriage, reinforcing the very idea it purports to subvert by framing female desire within “an elaborate code [of moral conduct] that has already been negotiated by her society.” A reading of The Awakening that can envision only two possible outcomes for its heroine – acquiescence to her role as

The subjects of the two novels, Edna Pontellier and the Narrator, undergo a similar change; at the onset of the novel they meet all societies expectations and standards for women of their time- Mrs. Pontellier is described as shy and reserved and neither protagonist ever disobey their husbands- but with each coming page, the women convert into someone unrecognizable to their antierior selves. Though their metamorphose are both ignited by a new environment, they had internally harbored yet suppressed their need for independence and freedom. Like these two, every woman holds creativity and free will; however during this time they were unable to practice them, as doing so was almost unheard of and rarely tolerated. The Narrator and Edna themselves serve to represent the healthy creative urges within women that have been suppressed.

    The Awakening, written by Kate Chopin, is full of ideas and understanding about human nature. In Chopin's time, writing a story with such great attention to sensual details in both men and women caused skepticism among readers and critics. However, many critics have different views with deeper thought given to The Awakening. Symbolism, the interpretation of Edna's suicide, and awakenings play important roles in the analysis of all critics.

In the novel The Awakening, by Kate Chopin the critical approach feminism is a major aspect of the novel. According to dictionary.reference.com the word feminism means, “The doctrine advocating social, political, and all other rights of women equal to those of men.” The Awakening takes place during the late eighteen hundreds to early nineteen hundreds, in New Orleans. The novel is about Edna Pontellier and her family on a summer vacation. Edna, who is a wife and mother, is inferior to her husband, Leonce, and must live by her husband’s desires. While on vacation Edna becomes close friends with Adele Ratignolle, who helps Edna discover she must be “awakened”. Adele is a character who represents the ideal woman. She is loving,