Essay on Kate Chopin's The Awakening

Another reason Mademoiselle Reisz is significant to Edna is because she is the only one who knows about and Robert and Edna’s love. Mademoiselle explains Robert’s love for Edna, “ It is because he loves you, poor fool, and is trying to forget you, since you are not free to listen to him or belong to him ” (95). Edna’s love for Robert is the reason why she quickly becomes uninvolved with her family and the life she is socially supposed to have. She does what she wants with disregard to anything her husband has to say.

Robert presents himself as a solution to the lack of romantic love in Edna's life. A young, nice looking man, he spends his summer devoted to Edna. She likes his attention and his adoring manner draws her to him. As they spend more time together, he begins to sing her songs and recite romantic poetry. This romantic aspect fills a void in her life. "For the first time, she recognized the symptoms of infatuation which she had felt incipiently as a child, as a girl in her early teens, and later as a young woman" (45). Robert gives her the picture perfect, model, swept off her feet in love romance that she direly needs. However, he soon retires to Mexico for a business venture and leaves Edna to pine for him in his absence. While he is gone, Edna thinks constantly of Robert and begs Mademoiselle Reisz to allow her to read the letter Robert sends. Devastated, she finds no mention of her name in the letter. When Robert finally returns, he pays little attention to her and again departs, telling her he is leaving because he loves her. "She writhed with a jealous pang. She wondered when he would come back. He had not said he would come back. She had been with him, had heard his voice and touched his hand. But some way he had seemed neared to her off there in Mexico" (103). While Robert helped awaken Edna's sexuality, he left her again, and she now knew the true joys and pains of

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.

The story, The Awakening, is about Edna Pontellier’s internal conflict between her desire for independence and her need to remain a high-class member of society. When away on summer vacation Edna has the realization that she has control of her own life and begins to focus on her self and not what others think. During her awakening, Edna is faced with much resilience from her husband and friends and instead of becoming someone she is not, Edna Pontellier ends her own life as she sees it is her only option. The author, Kate Chopin, uses many characters to exemplify the conflicting ideals emerging in Edna; particularly Madame Ratignolle acts as a foil to Edna’s newfound persona, instead symbolizing the conservation of a traditional

In the movie, we are left wondering how this man came to be in Edna's world. The movie does not show the development of the relationship at all. It does not speak of the pain that both Edna and Robert have to endure. In the novel, Robert loves Edna deeply, but he tries to deny his love because she is a married woman. It is what drives him to Mexico and back again. He says, "I couldn't help loving you if you were ten times his wife; but so long as I . . . kept away I could help telling you so." (Chopin 142) The movie does not address the pain and indecision that paralyze Robert and Edna. It treats their relationship as a lack of self-control based on lust and the heat of the moment.

In Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, two people who have the ultimate influence on Edna are Mademoiselle Reisz, and Robert Lebrun.

Edna is embarrassed that she took him so seriously and she writes him back stating she thought nothing of it . He takes this as a green light and continues to flirt with her. Edna continues to visit Mademoiselle Reisz During one visit Edna informed the madame that she would be renting out a small house and start her painting career.Mademoiselle Reisz nd Edna both are confused by this sudden notion.As usual, the madame gives the most recent f Roberts letter to Edna . She is shocked when she find out Robert is coming back to New Orleans . Edna confesses her love for Robert. Full of joy she goes home and sends her children bonbon and writes a cheerful letter to Leone telling of her intent to move .Later that evening Alcee visits and he and Edna find themselves alone . Alcee kisses her and she responds by grasping his head. After he left she felt bad that the kiss was not motivated by love

Edna was very surprised when she found out that Robert, the man she truly loves, wrote Mademoiselle Reisz and not herself. In Kate Chopin’s book The Awakening it says, “Yes, your friend Robert. He wrote to me from the City of Mexico. ‘Wrote to you?’ repeated Edna in amazement, stirring her coffee absently” (63). In the quote, Edna was surprised that Robert wrote to Reisz because they weren’t friends. Mademoiselle Reisz even said, “Your friend,” not even claiming Robert as a friend of hers. Which raises questions as to why Robert would be writing Reisz instead of Edna? During their time in Grand Isle, Edna and Robert spent every day together becoming closer fantasizing about things they would do together in the future. The only reason that

When she rouses, she rouses into a new Earth, one that is icier, pleasanter and tinted with the reminiscence of her fresh fantasies. Then she inquires whether it's time to go back home, Robert persuades Edna to remain with him even though the sky will grow dark soon as the sun would be setting soon. Jointly the couple admire the sunset, with Robert lying next to Mrs. Pontellier on the field. Mrs. Pontellier’s extended slumber signifies a evolution between the old, conservative Edna and the innovative, independent woman who elects to momentarily forget about her spouse and offspring and reside on the island with Robert, but this choice to momentarily forget about her family would have to come to an end soon as the vacation will have to eventually end, she has to make a choice between staying with Robert and her forgotten life with

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.

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

Edna's developing mannerisms suggest that she eventually becomes aware that Robert will never overcome the social conventions surrounding them. It is obvious that he views her as Léonce's belonging, strictly referring to her as “Mrs. Pontellier” throughout the book. Though Robert loves Edna, he cannot accept her as she wants to be accepted; as an equal. Instead, he wants to own her, and Edna understands that if she left Léonce for Robert, she would have not been anymore free with him than she currently was. She knows that, eventually, she will forget about Robert, and will no longer be trapped by her feelings for him. Instead, her children were what pushed her off of the edge.

    One theme apparent in Kate Chopin's novel, The Awakening, is the consequence of solitude when independence is chosen over conformity. The novel's protagonist, Edna Pontellier, is faced with this consequence after she embarks on a journey of self-discovery. "As Edna's ability to express herself grows, the number of people who can understand her newfound language shrinks" (Ward 3). Edna's awakening from a conforming, Victorian wife and mother, into an emotional and sexual woman takes place through the use of self-expression in three forms: emotional language, art, and physical passion.

Plot Summary- As the mass ends in the Grand Isles Edna 's love for Robert only increases. She stays with him that night, but soon receives the very terrible and nonchalant news of Robert 's travel to Mexico. He leaves her with a promise to write but nothing much more. Edna is crushed. As her and her family go back home for the fall she is in a constant depressed and sorrowful state. Roberts lack of writing and admiration in Edna 's eyes leave her to only want more independence. She no longer takes visitors on Tuesday nor does her usual household duties, like her friend Adele. She visits Mrs. Lebrun, who has aon with Victor received letter from Robert. Mrs. Lebrun also informs Edna where Madame Reisz is now

Edna's relationships with Robert and Alcee show the reader of Edna's sexual awakening. Becoming aware of her desire to be sexually aroused is just part of Edna's awakening. Edna met Robert as she was at a vacation resort with her family. They immediately had an attraction for one another, making Robert decide to focus his attention mostly on Edna, as he usually does with one particular woman every summer: "Since the age of fifteen...Robert each summer at Grand Isle had constituted himself the devoted attendant of some fair dame or damsel." (Chopin, 11) As the story progresses, the attraction Edna has for Robert becomes more and more intense. Their attraction continues Robert leaves to go to Mexico just as we come to find out they have fallen in love. Edna starts an affair with Alcee after her true love is gone. This further proves the feminist movement of sexual independence, and not having to be completely committed to one man.