Sacrifice illuminates true internal values, in that it represents a ready willingness to abandon something of great importance. In Kate Chopin’s “The Awakening”, the author utilises the monotonous uniformity of Edna Pontellier’s society, and the unspoken pressures to conform, in order to illustrate Edna’s internal conflict. Chopin’s portrayal of Edna’s sacrifice, conveys that those who value personal freedom will strive to defy societal conventions to temporarily fulfill autonomous desires, but in doing so will eventually experience personal destruction, to truly attain a measure of individual freedom. Edna’s dalliances with men other than her husband exemplify her desire to escape the strict confines of her own marriage, to escape the husband
The Awakening by Kate Chopin introduces the reader to the life of Edna Pontellier, a woman with an independent nature searching for her true identity in a patriarchal society that expects women to be nothing more than devoted wives and nurturing mothers.
In the story the ‘Awakening’ by Kate Chopin the main character is Edna Pontellier. Throughout the story, we see Edna go through many personal developments to find, her true identity. Edna also makes sacrifices to transform herself into a new person. Edna demonstrates this through life changes she makes with her change of family and social groups. She also displays, what she wants by going further than any other women had gone in her society. Edna is soul searching because, she is unsatisfied with, her life that is the main reason;she is going through these changes in life.
It is inevitable for people to seek change throughout their life. In the novel The Awakening written by Kate Chopin, this desire for change is most noticeable in Edna, a young woman trapped inside of a crumbling marriage, who searches for freedom from her husband in 19th century Louisiana where women were considered property once married. Kate Chopin uses symbolism to further the motif of the search for freedom as Edna’s characterization evolves through the imagery of birds, water, clothing, art, and sleeping, Chopin shows Edna’s hope towards a new life of freedom. Chopin uses birds to show Edna’s situation and change of character.
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.
In Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, the protagonist, Edna Pontellier, is searching and longing for her true self, and not what a traditional Victorian society believes she should be, which is nothing more or less than a devoted mother and housewife. Chopin incorporates strong symbols to convey Edna’s internal conflict that leads to her ultimate downfall: death by suicidal drowning. The struggle illustrated between conforming to societies expectations of the roles a woman should play and an independent woman characterized as a rebellious adulterer is too much for Edna to handle; thus, she feels forced to form her own escape into freedom, pure bliss, and empowerment. First of all, the author very plainly uses the sea, birds, and clothing/nudity as cyphers in order for the reader to easily follow the process of Edna’s ‘awakening.’
Kate Chopin’s The Awakening addresses the role of women within society during the late nineteenth century. The novel is set in South Louisiana, a place where tradition and culture also play a vital role in societal expectations. The novel’s protagonist, Edna Pontellier, initially fulfills her position in society as a wife and as a mother while suppressing her urges to live a life of passion and freedom. Edna’s relationship with her husband, Léonce Pontellier, represents her expected role in a marriage that lacks passion and excitement. Edna’s relationship with her lover, Robert Lebrun, represents her indulgence in her passion and freedom. Chopin juxtaposes the
For this long work essay, the story I chose to write about is Kate Chopin’s “The Awakening”. I chose this story because I feel like I can relate to it personally, which makes a story a lot more interesting to read to me. Also, I chose this story because I feel like it is timeless, and one that should be important for readers for years to come. The protagonist of this story is Edna Pontellier, and the story tells of all the struggles and other things she faces as a woman back in her time. Edna is a very complex character, whose true feelings and her actions ultimately lead to her self-inflicted death. One important theme throughout this story was the theme of self-expression. I found this theme to be important because it really shows and defines Edna as a character.
In The Awakening, Chopin questions gender roles. Chopin seeks an identity for women that is neither wife nor mother. To achieve this end, she incorporates progressive feminist ideas into her writing. Yet, in the end, Chopin also shows that, because of years of conditioning, many women are unable to escape society’s stereotypical roles by any satisfactory means. The protagonist of the novel, Edna Pontellier, does not possess the skills needed to become independent and, despite attempts to escape, succumbs finally to the doomed dream of romantic love.
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.
	In The Awakening, Kate Chopin brings out the essence of through the characters of her novel. In this novel Edna Pontellier faces many problems because she is an outcast from society. As a result of her isolation from society she has to learn to fit in and deal with her problems. This situation causes her to go through a series of awakenings that help her find herself, but this also causes problems with her husband because she loses respect for him and the society she lives in. Throughout the novel she is faced with unfavorable circumstances which confuse and eventually kill her. Kate Chopin uses Creole Society in the 1890s as a basis for her novel and expresses it through
As the main character in Kate Chopin’s novel The Awakening, Edna Pontellier experiences strong internal conflicts that could be influenced by the social standards of the time as well as her close Creole companions. Throughout the novel we are given a first hand look at how Mrs. Pontellier deals with these conflicts and in the end, her final decision. Edna Pontellier poses as a double-minded character struggling with the inclination to satisfy her own desires by carrying out an affair that has been on her mind or to satisfy society by remaining faithful to her current family.
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.
Immersion into the frame of mind of Edna Pontellier, in Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, is a fascinating experience, one with many conflicting internal and external influences. Like a marionette, Edna acts as a slave to her perceived social constraints in the beginning of The Awakening, a poignant contrast to her emotionally fueled, self-destructive choices towards the end. In the opening chapters of Edna’s story, she is described from an external viewpoint. Readers do not especially see the interworking of her thoughts and feelings through Chopin’s initial character sketch, “Mrs. Pontellier’s eyes were quick and bright; they were a yellowish brown, about the color of her hair” (5). Such a description is effective in producing a mental image of her appearance, yet her inner-identity remains a mystery. Although there is some foreshadowing lending readers to assume Edna’s dissatisfaction with her life, “She could not have told why she was crying. Such experiences as the foregoing were not uncommon in her married life” (Chopin 8). The true reasons for her distaste of being a housewife and mother are not revealed until later on. Eventually, the reader forms an understanding of Edna’s “lack of identity”, manifested through the relationships she becomes tangled in, from friendships to romance.
Identity and feminism, complex themes that have survived the ages from Kate Chopin’s work The Awakening. The protagonist, Edna Pontellier, breaks many of the Victorian cultural era norms, exploring these themes and influencing society’s perception of women. For these reasons The Awakening is a novel of immense merit and should continue to be taught in an AP Literature course. Throughout the novel, Edna Pontellier questions her identity and roles as a woman and as a mother.
In the melting pot of a complex cultural, Mrs. Edna Pontellier is a married woman to a rich, successful business man. In this society, women are expected to perform household duties, obey their husbands’ commands, and above all else, take care of the children. It is often sought out to marry men of success, as this will secure a financial future. Furthermore, according to The Awakening, it was not uncommon for a man to run off to attend to business while a woman would constantly remain at home. Despite the fact that Edna has had everything provided for her, she is in a state of rebellion against her husband and the social norm of standards. Edna’s personally had even been stated as an “instinctively the dual life- that outward existence which forms, the inward life which questions” (Chopin 572). In Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, Mrs. Edna Ponteiller struggles with her identity as a mother, a wife, and as an individual.