Kate Chopin Gives a Womans Voice to Realism Essay example

Commonly explored throughout her works, the idea of marriage inhibiting a woman’s freedom is the driving force behind Kate Chopin’s contextual objections to propriety. In particular, The Awakening and “The Story of an Hour” explore the lives of women seeking marital liberation and individuality. Mrs. Chopin, who was raised in a matriarchal household, expresses her opposition to the nineteenth century patriarchal society while using her personal experiences to exemplify her feminist views.

Robert creates the want and need for sexual satisfaction, art, music and freedom she no longer has in her marriage. Like a young girl, she begins to see the world from a fresh new perspective. The people Edna meets on Grand Isle awaken her desires which she could no longer bear to keep hidden inside. She soon becomes childish, failing to consider the needs and desires of anyone but herself. Edna’s desires lead her to become an independent woman.

     Kate Chopin was one of the greatest and earliest feminist writers in history, whose works have inspired some and drawn much criticism from others. Chopin, through her writings, had shown her struggle for freedom and individuality.

Chopin became a symbol and mascot for the American Women’s Suffrage Movement (1910-1920) with the passage of the nineteenth amendment that stated: “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.” (First-Wave Feminism) Although Chopin was not alive while the actual women’s movement occurred, she still contributed. Her work did not receive any admiration until decades after her death around the 1950 's. (Sandra).

He didn't know that she was going in the first place. She seems not to worry about what others think of her, except Robert.

Have you ever wondered what the lifestyles of Nineteenth Century women were like? Were they independent, career women or were they typical housewives that cooked, clean, watched the children, and catered to their husbands. Did the women of this era express themselves freely or did they just do what society expected of them? Kate Chopin was a female author who wrote several stories and two novels about women. One of her renowned works of art is The Awakening. This novel created great controversy and received negative criticism from literary critics due to Chopin's portrayal of women by Edna throughout the book.

I believe there are many points in the story that can be considered to be very relevant to the time it was written, expressing ideas of the approaching feminist movement and building up an awareness of what was happening to women and the forthcoming feminist movement. Many of the ideas that are expressed in the story concern both the women’s movement and an individual woman searching for her identity. Chopin demonstrates

When Edna swims far out into the ocean, she foreshadows her eventual arrival to individuality and her refusal to conform to gender roles. Notably, Edna experiences true passion for the first time and is “awakened” when she kisses Arobin. Edna continues to foster a sense of individualism and moves into the pigeon house. As she removes herself more and more from the constraints of society, she exponentially grows in strength and happiness as she becomes more in tune with her true self. However at this moment, Robert, her great love, suddenly returns and seems distant. Edna learns that with great emotion of passion also comes great emotion of pain. Edna, acting out of

Kate Chopin was an American author who wrote novels as well as short stories. Her work was extraordinary and some of her greatest work was based on the feminist movement. Kate Chopin became known throughout the world as one of the most influential writers during the feminist movement. She has attracted great attention from scholars along with students, and her work has been translated into many different languages.

“Love and passion, marriage and independence, freedom and restraint.” These are the themes that are represented and worked with throughout Kate Chopin’s works. Kate Chopin, who was born on February 8, 1851, in St. Louis, was an American acclaimed writer of short stories and novels. She was also a poet, essayist, and a memoirist. Chopin grew up around many women; intellectual women that is. Chopin said herself that she was neither a feminist nor a suffragist; she was simply a woman who took other women intensely seriously. Chopin believed women had the ability to be strong, individual, and free-spirited. She herself reached out, in

    Kate Chopin was an extraordinary writer of the nineteenth century. Despite failure to receive positive critical response, she became one of the most powerful and controversial writers of her time. She dared to write her thoughts on topics considered radical: the institution of marriage and women's desire for social, economic, and political equality. With a focus on the reality of relationships between men and women, she draws stunning and intelligent characters in a rich and bold writing style that was not accepted because it was so far ahead of its time. She risked her reputation by creating female heroines as independent women who wish to receive sexual and emotional fulfillment,

Chopin notes, "Perhaps it was the first time she was ready, perhaps the first time her being was tempered to take an impress of the abiding truth" (699). Mlle. Reisz feels the music is a mode of communication between Edna and herself. This prompts her to tell Edna during a party, "You are the only one worth playing for" (Chopin 700). The music calls to something within Edna, which further wakes her from the slumber of domesticity. As Edna realizes the expressive nature of music, she wants to apply this expression to her painting. She seeks the encouragement of her first teacher of expression, Madame Ratignolle, hoping her kind words will "help her put her heart into her venture" (Chopin 723). When Edna surrendered to "the service of art" her husband noted, "she was not herself. That is, he could not see the she was becoming herself" (Chopin 724). Self-expression through art progresses Edna in her new sense of self, but one more form must be learned to complete her transformation.

Robert leaves Edna behind because Edna does not give a clear answer to his marriage

During the feminist movement many female authors began to write novels about female emancipation. In these novels, the protagonist experiences enlightenment where she discovers that she is living an incomplete life that society has oppressed her into. Before the movement, society forced women into roles that were inferior to men and they were thought of as men’s property. Harold bloom states, “The direction of The Awakening follows what is becoming a pattern in literature by and about women…toward greater self-knowledge that leads in turn to a revelation of the disparity between that self-knowledge and nature of the world” (Bloom, Kate Chopin 43). Moreover, Chopin viewed women’s independence as a personal challenge more than a social struggle, which contradicts her literary works. According to Harold Bloom, “Chopin’s novel was not intended to make a broad social statement but rather that it indicates that Chopin viewed women’s independence as a personal matter”(Bloom, Bloom’s Notes 58). In the past, the novel was banned because of its connection to the feminist movement.

In several instances, she casually slips in French phrases and words. For example, the characters are referred to by social titles and not first names such as Madame Ratignolle and Mademoiselle Reisz. The central issue and theme is Edna's struggle with being the ideal, cookie cutter doting wife. She finds it hard to be as domestic and submissive as the women who were raised in a Creole household and community. She attempts to be a 'mother-wife" like the other women and ultimately ends up taking her own life because she despises it so much. Even though this work was published in 1899 it is still relevant today. Chopin's stories go hand in hand with modern feminism and the stigma that marriage is the ultimate goal.