Social Norms Of The Awakening

Adele Ratignolle serves as a foil to Edna, since she is the ultimate embodiment of the perfect wife and mother. Adele belongs to a group of women “who idolized their children, worshipped their husbands, and esteemed it a holy privilege to efface themselves as individuals and grow wings as ministering angels” (Chopin 10). Adele is everything that Edna is not as a mother. Despite this, Edna and Adele find themselves in similar situations. Adele too cannot escape her children, so much so that “she has no way of conceiving of herself as a separate person” (Bogarad 160). Edna herself recognizes Adele’s entrapment, feeling “pity for that colorless existence which never uplifted its possessor of blind contentment…” (Chopin 74). The only difference between Edna and Adele is that while Edna rejects her role, Adele blindly embraces it. Conversely, Mademoiselle Reisz is unmarried with no children. She is free. Mademoiselle Reisz expresses herself through her music and she is not afraid to reveal her emotions, causing her to be seen as an “eccentric, unpleasant ‘old maid’” (Bogarad 160). Despite this, Mademoiselle Reisz’s lifestyle is what Edna desires for herself. When Edna attempts to paint she finds she only is able to when she is feeling content. She wants to express her feelings towards Robert yet they are suppressed. Mademoiselle Reisz does not face these challenges, proving that the

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.

In Chapter 8, Madame Ratignolle pulls Robert aside and asks him to leave Edna alone. She explains that Edna,” Is not one of us; she is not like us. She might make the unfortunate blunder of taking you seriously.” Chopin’s use of repetition in Adele’s dialogue puts emphasis on Edna’s uniqueness and labels her as an outcast. Adele sees Edna drifting further and further away from the social norms of their accustomed society and wishes to stop her before its too late. Chopin also uses this scene to foreshadow Robert’s unwillingness to commit to Edna as he brushes off Madame Ratignolle’s warning, seeing his relationship with Edna as a fling rather than being the passionate lover Edna craves.

Edna Pontellier was a very respectable woman from the 1800's that was unsatisfied with her situation in life. Mrs. Pontellier was a mother of two sons and had a husband whom she adored at the beginning of their marriage, but overtime they have became distant and her sexual desires were no longer being fulfilled. She soon broke the role society had casted upon her and became rebellious by leaving her womanly duties behind. Kate Chopin reveals Edna Pontellier's character through the her actions, through dialogue, and by telling the reader the thoughts and feelings that are circulation through Mrs. Pontellier.

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

He starts off very irritated. His wife Edna is then introduced into the story. Edna is spending time with a friend, Robert. Mr. Pontellier decides to head out to a gentlemen’s night at a friend’s place and comes home fairly late. He tells Edna he thinks their son has a fever. Leonce is very rude to Edna and Edna begins crying. Without really resolving their fight, Leonce goes away on business but leaves Edna with gifts to make up for it. All Edna’s friends tell her she has the best husband. Her friends Adele and Madame Reisz keep her company. Edna begins spending more time with Robert and comes to realize he is leaving to go to Mexico. Once he leaves she is very sad and misses him very much. Leonce is very concerned with Edna’s attitude. She is avoiding all responsibility. She starts swimming to escape from her stress. Edna starts spending time with a man named Alcee Arobin. They go to the horseraces together and get closer. They end up sharing a few passionate kisses, but Edna feels terrible because she loves Robert and she is also married to Leonce. Edna decides to move out of Leonce’s house. She moves around the corner and likes living on her own. Robert ends up coming back and they profess their love for one another. Edna loves Robert but she wants her freedom. Robert respects this and ends up leaving again and says he has to go because he loves her. Edna ends up going for a

Finally, Edna’s vulnerability to love and passion serves as a major contributing factor to her “defeat and regression” in the sense that it directly impacted some aspects of her despair and desire to escape from reality. The narrator reveals in Chapter VII, “[Edna’s] marriage to Leonce Pontellier was purely an accident,” (Chopin, 24). She simply becomes caught up in a moment of passion and impulsiveness, satisfied at the fact that her marriage would upset both her father and sister. In this sense, her rushing into marriage without a basis of love may be the root of her depressive episodes. Additionally, after Robert leaves for Mexico, Edna becomes overly anxious to receive letters from him, actually breaking into tears upon finally laying her eyes upon a letter from Robert addressed to Mademoiselle Reisz (Chopin, 86-87). This is a prime example of Edna’s vulnerability to love; her emotions are controlled by her “lover’s” presence and lack thereof, influencing and even worsening her sudden moments of dread and despair. Also, Edna succumbs to seduction by Alcee Arobin’s charm, first with a kiss (Chopin, 112) and then through sleeping with Arobin (Chopin, 125). Edna’s adulterous actions with Arobin are representative of the independent will she now possesses and has displayed in the past in her

But they need not have thought that they could possess her, body and soul" (504).  Although Edna did perform her duties as a wife for some time, she is not the typical housewife.  She does not worship her husband or idolize her children, which makes both Edna and Leonce begin to sense that Edna is different from the other mother-women (Lin 1).  Edna never realized the reasons she neglected her duties as a wife until she fell in love with Robert and acknowledged that her desires and needs exist outside of her marriage.  Thus, after her experiences with Robert, Edna is ready to neglect her husband even more, because she now realizes that her husband is holding her back from her needs.  When Leonce tries to make Edna act like the other women that obey their husbands, his attempts to control Edna further instigate Edna's desire for independence from him.  For example, the scene when Edna is lying in the hammock, Leonce says: "I can't permit you to stay out there all night.  You must come in the house instantly," Edna replies: "I mean to stay out here.  I don't wish to go in, and I don't intend to.  Don't speak to me like that again; I shall not answer you" (492).  Edna is carefree and spirited, and she refuses to conform to her husband because she does not want to lose herself.  Becoming the perfect, obedient wife would mean losing her individuality, and Edna realizes she can gain no fulfillment

After returning from vacation, Edna is a changed woman. When her husband and children are gone, she moves out of the house and purses her own ambitions. She starts painting and feeling happier. “There were days when she was very happy without knowing why. She was happy to be alive and breathing when her whole being seemed to be one with the sunlight, the color, the odors, the luxuriant warmth of some perfect Southern day” (Chopin 69). Her sacrifice greatly contributed to her disobedient actions.

When Edna returns home later that day, she finds out that Robert is leaving for Mexico. She is rather upset with this news and afterwards leaves to go home. "She went directly to her room. The little cottage was close and stuffy after leaving the outer air. But she did not mind; there appeared to be a hundred different things demanding her attention indoors." (42) She tries to ignore that his leaving and not telling her affects her so much. Yet she declines an invitation from Madame Lebrun to go and sit with them until Robert leaves. When Edna sees him leave it tears her up inside that her companion, the one person that she felt understood her, is leaving: "Edna bit her handkerchief convulsively, striving to hold back and to hide, even from herself as she would have hidden from another, the emotion which was troubling - tearing- her. Her eyes were brimming with tears." (44) Edna's life is not complete when Robert leaves:

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.

    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.

She was pressured to marry Leonce by her father and older sister. Along with marriage came the pressure to have children. She is forced into these roles but never actually succumbs to them. Edna not only has Madame Ratignolle's friendship and her marriage to wake her up to her dreams and emotions, her affairs wake up to her desires. The way the different male characters treat her reminds her that she will never happily fit into the role of a wife and mother, therefore awakening her.

In Kate Chopin’s novel, The Awakening, the constant boundaries and restrictions placed on Edna Pontellier by society will lead to her struggle for freedom and her ultimate suicide. Her husband Leonce Pontellier, the current women of society, and the Grand Isle make it evident that Edna is trapped in a patriarchal society. Despite these people, Edna has a need to be free and she is able to escape from the society that she despises. The sea, Robert Lebrun, and Mademoiselle Reisz serve as Edna’s outlets from conformity. “Edna's journey for personal independence involves finding the words to express herself. She commits suicide rather than sacrificing her independent,

In Kate Chopin's, The Awakening, Edna Pontellier, is not an ordinary woman of her time. This era in which she lived women cared for their family and home more than anything else. Edna was different. She constantly fights against social cultures that people had during this time. She learns about herself, she can not be just a “mother-woman” but she has a lot ahead in her future. The dictatorial society and the difficulties she was facing and problems with her family led to Edna’s suicide in the novel. The suicide was not necessary, and it is clearly that was not the best option Edna had in escaping all her problems.