Essay on Romanticism, Realism and Local Color in The Awakening

In the novel, The Awakening by Kate Chopin portrays an image where someone shifts from one phase to another one. We find the protagonist go through a shift from patriarchy to feminist resistance. As this story continues to unfold, Edna goes through feminist resistance where she doesn’t want to still rely on her husband anymore and want to live by her own rules. Edna Pontellier’s “awakening” takes place in Grand Isle and New Orleans during the late 1800s. It is an important factor of the book because during this time period women were fighting for their rights. Usually before this time, women would only stay home and follow the orders of their husbands. Women during this time period needed to stay home and care for the house and the children. They always had to live for their children almost are like a slave to their husband. Women would be often seen as a property and not an actual human being. In this novel, we find restrains at the beginning and later see the shift to wanting freedom of expression.

Kate Chopin’s The Awakening is a story written in the late 19th century about a woman named Edna becoming independent and finding herself in a time when women had little to no rights and were seen as property of their husband. Racism, sexism, and feminism were all going on when this book was written, and therefore influenced it greatly.

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.

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 The Awakening, Kate Chopin creates a protagonist that clearly demonstrates a feminist. The protagonist, Edna Pontellier seeks more from life than what she is living and starts to refuse the standards of the society she lives in. Edna has many moments of awakening resulting in creating a new person for herself. She starts to see the life of freedom and individuality she wants to live. The Awakening encourages feminism as a way for women to obtain freedom and choose individuality over conformity. Chopin creates a feminist story that shows a transformation from an obedient “mother-woman” to a woman who is willing to sacrifice her old life to become independent and make an identity for herself.

     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.

The novel The Awakening by Kate Chopin contains content that is highly debatable and easily controversial. In the essay Chopin’s The Awakening by Roger Platizky, the author interpreted from the novel that the depression of Edna Pontellier, the main feminine lead, is created not only from the male oppression of the time period, but is also derived from the idea that Edna is affected by a previous encounter with sexual violence, either as a witness or a victim. While there is some way to infer that this is true, it is not confirmed and is quite a reach, considering her life now and willingness with men. The reason that some readers believe this is due to her “mood changes, boundary problems and suicide” (Platizky, Roger). If Edna was a victim or witness to sexual violence, she would be even more submissive and fragile as a character. This theory is untrue, however, because throughout the novel Edna Pontellier displays a growing strength that is presented to the men in her life and finally gains her the independence she has been desiring, even if it isn’t in the most predictable way.

The Awakening, by Kate Chopin, is full of symbolism and metaphors. Most of the metaphors in The Awakening are about the change in Edna Pontellier and about the way she feels in society. In The Awakening, symbolism is often used to describe the current state of mind of Edna, some of these symbols include art, houses, music, the sea, and birds. Throughout the story, the way Edna feels in society is often shown in the form of a bird. At the beginning of the story she is like a bird in a cage, but at the end she is shown to now be a free pigeon.

Kate Chopin was an author best known for her strong leading female characters. The essence of her characters was based on her female oriented upbringing. She was raised at home by her mother, grandmother, and great grandmother and at school she was taught by nuns. The soul of

Imagine being far out into the middle of the ocean and at that moment, having to make a choice between judgment and individuality, death and life? In 1899, Kate Chopin composed a captivating novel titled The Awakening. Throughout Chopin's day, the work was regarded as nonsense and a waste of time on her part. Critics found the main character's rebellion to be foolish and unlawful. At that age, it was believed firmly that women should be nothing less than completely loyal to their husbands and should joyfully care for any children that they had while their spouse was away, hard at work. Edna, the central character, did not follow this standard. She says

Kate Chopin is an American writer best known for her novels and short stories. She was born February 8, 1850, in St. Louis, Missouri and she died on August 22, 1904, in St. Louis, Missouri. Kate Chopin was a feminist author. She was the author of two short stories, The Story of an Hour, and The Storm.

    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,

“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

I have decided to focus on the works of one of the most controversial and influential authors to emerge during the realism and naturalism movement, Kate Chopin. Chopin was a feminist writer who frequently focused on the difficulties of being a woman in that time

The unique style of Kate Chopin’s writing has influenced and paved the way for many female authors. Although not verbally, Kate Chopin aired political and social issues affecting women and challenging the validity of such restrictions through fiction. Kate Chopin, a feminist in her time, prevailed against the notion that a woman’s purpose was to only be a housewife and nothing more. Kate Chopin fortified the importance of women empowerment, self-expression, self-assertion, and female sexuality through creativity in her literary work.