Kate Chopin 's The Awakening

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.

Sexual transgression and sexual exploration is one of the most highly talked about topics in today’s society. The path to sexual liberation within society begins with experimentation and exploration, followed by personal acceptance, and finally, although not always, societal acceptance. Although we have come a long way on the path of acceptance of different sexual transgressions, the stories of Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, Tennessee Williams’ “Vieux Carre,” and Lyle Saxon’s “The Centaur Plays Croquet” show that this type of acceptance has not always been the case. Each story plays an integral role when looking at the steps on the path to societal acceptance. Chopin 's story dives deep into the area of experimentation and exploration, whereas Saxon 's story looks more at the areas of personal acceptance, and Williams ' story lies more along the area of societal acceptance, and whether or not acceptance is always the end result.

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.

Flannery O’Connor’s work opens up wide doors and gives direct access to the true heart

In the novel, The Awakening, by Kate Chopin, we see how much of an importance the men in Edna’s life serve as a purpose to her awakening. Chopin is known to write stories about women who are unsatisfied with their lives while living in a life that is dominated by men. Other than Edna, the main men characters are typical men of the late 19th century era. Chopin shows how these three men are diverse from one another. The Creole men are Léonce Pontellier, Edna’s husband, Robert, Edna’s mystery man number one, and Alcee, mystery man number two. Léonce, Edna’s husband, is a businessman who has no time for his family let alone his wife. Alcee comes off as carefree and does not seem to care what society thinks of him. Robert is Edna’s main mystery man who she loves but Robert doesn’t love her back. Throughout the novel, these men make Edna question herself, which lead her to her awakening. These men show how men in the late 19th century behaved. In a male dominated world, women were not allowed to do much except for be good wives and mothers to their families. Edna learned the hard way as to what it meant to be the wife of a Creole man in the Victorian era. Men expected too much of women because appearances meant everything and no man would want to have a wife who is out of line and not well behaved in public. In studying these three men in Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, we see how different yet alike these men are to one another.

Pigsy, Rib of man, Piece of goods, Frail, Scupper are some of the many words that were used to describe over the last millennium, some of the words which are very offensive today. According to dictionary.com, Feminism means the advocacy of women’s right on the basis of the equality of the sexes. In The Awakening by Kate Chopin, Chopin expressed female oppression and feminism through Edna’s life, her choices and the people in her community. Chopin had many examples of female oppression and feminism in her novel, such as Adele Ratignolle’s life, how women were stereotyped in the society at that time, why women in the 1800s fought for their feminist rights,

In the story about Edna Pontellier a major theme is her omitted self discovery. In the story we can see how Chopin uses style, tone and content to make the reader understand how it was for a person challenging many of the beliefs of the society at the beginning of the twentieth century.

For Centuries, man has been caught in the middle of a tug of war between two influences. One influence stems from society, an Apollonian lifestyle of order, structure, responsibility, while the other is the individual’s inner Dionysian desire for indulgence, impulsiveness, freedom. In Kate Chopin’s novella The Awakening, Chopin depicts Apollonian and Dionysian values through the description of certain settings and characters, while also depicting the dramatic inner battle that the protagonist, Edna Pontellier, experiences between these two influences. By showing the pull that Edna feels between the societal Apollonian lifestyle of structure and confinement versus the individual-based Dionysian lifestyle of freedom, Chopin implies that women

When it comes to the word sacrifice, people tend to interpret it in many different ways. Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese monk who focuses on the peace movement of people, once said, “People sacrifice the present for the future. But life is available only in the present.” In the story, The Awakening by Kate Chopin, Edna Pontellier sacrifices her own life during the present, which means she surrendered her future by doing so, according to Thich Nhat Hanh. Some may ask, why would a blessed and fortunate young woman give up her privileged life? Societal pressure, self-identity, and freedom were just some of the obstacles Edna was trying to overcome throughout her life, the common factor of all these obstacles being Edna’s sacrifice, lead by her self-awakening. As the story continues, Edna eventually grows to appreciate and better understand this awakening, which teaches her to cherish her own life and strive to attain what she wants from it. Unfortunately, she found her escape from the wrongs in her life by suicide. On the contrary, her sacrifice of her self-awakening proves that she is human and has some of the same thoughts, feelings, and values as everyone else does.

Courage…dedication…persistency…fearlessness…these are the words that may abruptly come knocking into an individual’s mind, when we hear the compelling word heroic. Over the course of the novel, The Awakening, by Kate Chopin, I’ve come to discover that these adjectives do not fairly denote who a hero truly is. Can you ever consider an outcast a hero?... living within the norms and ideas of society that may reject his/her own philosophy, an outcast that may just be eagerly fighting, both physically and mentally to convey what others cannot see. It’s time we realized that a hero can be derive from distinctive ideas or norms build within society, but the characteristic that one must contained to truly be derived or look upon as a hero… is love… the love that empowers one to fight for the belief that many others may just be oblivious to. This same love stimulated Edna’s awakening to a reality she knew she did not belong, a realm that she fought to escape by understanding who she is and who she needs to be inside the social hierarchy of the 1890’s.

The Awakening is a story written by Kate Chopin, which is taking place in the late 18th century at a vacation place called Grand Isle. The story talks about a woman and her “awakening”. The Awakening is illustrating the female hero’s life, Edna Pontellier, where she is dealing with life problems such as defining what she really wants and what has priority in her life. The hero in The Awakening is Edna Pontellier, a married woman with two children which she does not care much about. Not only that Edna Pontellier does not care much about her children, in addition, she also does not care much about her husband. One day Edna Pontellier woke up and figured out that her freedom as an individual is more important to her than her duties as a wife and mother. Whereby, she developed a crush on another man, Robert Lebrun, and furthermore, she has at the same time an affair with another man, Alcee Arobin, while Robert Lebrun was gone. During the story the reader gets also introduced with Edna Pontellier’s friends and guide’s Adele Ratignolle, who is a very carrying woman, who loves her children and her husband, and Mademoiselle Reisz, who is the complete opposite of Adele Ratignolle since she is selfish and very cold to other people besides Edna Pontellier. Both are responsible for Edna’s “awakening” throughout the story.

Many of Kate Chopin’s writings are trademarked by her unique, deliberate word choices. Chopin uses phrases that do not make sense and seem to contradict themselves to get across a point. In two of her stories, “The Story of an Hour” and “The Awakening,” Chopin’s word usage highlights the idea of self-discovery.

In The Awakening, Kate Chopin ends the novel in a vastly different way than most authors would have at that time with her main character, Edna Pontellier, committing suicide by drowning herself. If one were to isolate this ending without any context whatsoever, it would feel tragic and depressing; however, the events leading up to her death actually explains to the readers her spiritual reassessment and moral reconciliation, both of which being themes significant to the book as a whole.

In paragraph eight, Chopin begins to use personification as well as imagery. Mrs Mallard “young, with a fair, calm face” (158) is sitting in the armchair with a “dull stare in her eyes” (158) which “indicated of intelligent thought” (158). Reading this, the reader can form an idea of what Mrs Mallard looks like, and we understand that there’s something going on in Mrs Mallards head, something changing everything in her mind. Mrs Mallard is still struggling to figure it out but “she felt it, creeping out of the sky, reaching towards her through the sounds, the scents, the color that filled the air”. From this we understand that she is beginning to realise it, and her soul is beginning to fill with happiness of freedom, which is in all the sounds, smells and things she sees. For one moment, however, she is somewhat afraid of feeling happy about her freedom and “she was striving to beat it back with her will” (159). This shows that Mrs Mallard is a “product” of her time, and is striving to feel what is socially accepted. She realizes that society would determine her thoughts of freedom inappropriate, but she can’t stop herself from feeling that way.

When she goes in her room alone, she unveils her true emotions. The setting shows comfort and indicates that she feels safe. The "open window" symbolises her new beginning and she fills her mind with fantasies of freedom. "She would have no one follow her" indicates that she had only her room to retreat to and it is from this place that she is able to look out at the world. The metaphor "delicious breath of rain", the "peddler", "a distant song" and the sparrows are all symbolical of spring which represents new hope for a better life for Mrs Mallard.