The Awakening Analysis

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.

Through the story Edna becomes more and more uneasy about not being able to do and have what she really wants. This can be shown from the beginning when she lets her children play by themselves and doesn’t miss her husband when he is away from home. Edna tried to be a good mother by becoming friends with an old fashioned woman, Madame Adèle Ratignolle, who devoted her life to her husband and children. However, when Edna was not around Madame Adèle Ratignolle, she forgot how to be like Adèle Ratignolle and instead busied herself with what was considered to be her “childish ways”. She would try to make herself as happy as possible; she was not her happiest with her husband and kids. When Edna discovered her passion for art, she embraced it and neglected her family even more so than before.

Kate Chopin’s controversial novel, The Awakening, comprehends the frustrations and the triumphs in a woman’s life as she attempts to cope with the strict cultural demands. The protagonist Edna Pontellier challenges the norms of society as she abandons the stereotype of a “mother-woman”. The novel accounts Edna Pontellier’s journey toward a new vision of female and constantly examines and challenges the boundaries of a “mother-woman”. The continuous characterization of Edna throughout the book presents the idea that individuality and freedom of women could not be earned in the inhibiting society that she was trapped in.

In Chopin’s novel, The Awakening, she writes about a woman’s desire to find and live fully within her true self during the 1890s in Louisiana. The woman, Edna Pontellier, is trying to find herself in the masculine society of Louisiana, leading her to cause friction with friends, family and the Creole society. Edna begins to feel a change; she begins to feel like a whole person with wants, interests and desires. She learns that she is not comfortable with being a wife and mother. The imagery of the parrot in the cage in Chopin’s novel is being compared to Edna because it represents Edna’s unspoken feelings and imprisonment. The sense of unspoken feelings and imprisonment of Edna causes her to put her own needs before her family. As Edna finds herself trying to satisfy the Creole society, she begins to feel isolated and confused. Through Edna’s trace of freedom, she begins to undergo a transformation of self, slowly straying away from society, and taking control over her own actions and beliefs. Through obstacles to Edna’s freedom, she learns that she does have control of her own body. The symbolism of the birds and the sea is used to symbolize Edna’s struggle for independence.

In Kate Chopin’s novel, The Awakening a wife and a mother of two, Edna Pontellier, discovers her desires as a woman to live life to the fullest extent and to find her true self. Eventually, her discovery leads to friction between friends, family, and the dominant values of society. Through Chopin's use of Author’s craft and literary elements, the readers have a clear comprehension as to what the author is conveying.

Finally, Chopin’s distinction of Mrs. Pontellier in this passage also makes reference towards the representation that she has with a few individuals and society in the story as well. For example, at the end of the passage in chapter six, Chopin provides details that speaks to the type of woman that Mrs. Pontellier is beginning to see herself as. In the passage it reads, “The voice of the sea is seductive; never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander for a spell in abysses of solitude; to lose itself in mazes of inward contemplation.” This statements provides the description of Edna Pontellier in a larger sense as she relates her new outlook on freedom to that of the sea. Here is where she finally notes her true individuality and not just another wife or mother, but that she is free to be whom she wants and take notice of her own desires, wants and needs. One may find that as she describes details of the sea she begins to rouse her thoughts of ownership over herself.

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

She is moved by music. During that summer Edna sketches to find an artistic side to herself. She needs an outlet to express who she is. Edna feels that art is important and adds meaning to her life. After the summer is over and they are back to the city and Edna is a changed woman. She makes many steps towards independence. She stops holding "Tuesday socials", she sends her children to live in the country with their grandparents, she refuses to travel abroad with her husband, she moves out of the Lebrun house on Esplanade Street, and to earn money, she starts selling her sketches and betting the horses. She also starts a relationship with another man Alcee Arobin. He meant nothing to her emotionally but she used him for sexual pleasure. Edna evolved above her peers she did not believe that sexuality and motherhood had to be linked. The last step of her "awakening" is the realization that she can not fulfill her life in a society that will not allow her to be a person and a mother. Edna commits suicide in the ocean at Grand Isle.

Kate Chopin's depiction of “The Awakening” is realistic as she develops Edna Pontellier’s character from a socially and morally respectable individual to an individual that turns her back on everything closest to her as she births her new self-being. Edna Pontellier struggles between her subconscious and conscious thoughts as unusual feelings stir unfounded emotions and senses. Some of Chopin’s characters lend themselves in Edna’s “awakening”. Through examination of Leonce Pontellier, Robert Lebrun, Madame Moiselle Reisz, Adele Ratignolle, and Alcee Arobin the life of Edna Pontellier turns into her ultimate death. The relationship she has with each one of these characters influences and initiates a lost feeling

We first meet Edna on her way back from a swim with Robert Lebrun, as Chopin begins to establish Edna’s burgeoning transformation in the context of her relationship with Robert and to

His absence creates a void and she feels he has taken the brightness from her life. Edna keeps her feelings to herself as she has been accustomed to doing all of her life. She awakens to the knowing that she would give up her money, her life for her children but, she would never give up herself again. Returning to New Orleans she goes through the motions of living, appearing ill and lifeless and longs for life’s delirium. She returns to her love of painting and begins to spend her days in the studio by herself. Her husband is rude to her and belittles her talent because he is angry and feels she has deserted her duties to him. She has upset the balance of their relationship. Meanwhile her husband seeks the advice of a doctor. He cannot understand his wife’s new found “rights of women” attitude and finds himself wanting to be abusive to her. Her husband leaves on an extended trip away and she moves into a small cottage, alone with one servant, and sends the children to their grandparents.

After years of following the gender roles that have been placed upon her she finally, "was beginning to realize her position in the universe as a human being, and to recognize her relations as an individual to the world within and about her” (Chopin 14). Edna has a personal awakening, in which she realizes that she does not need to be held back, and she can escape from the cage she has been put in. Over time she separates herself from the society around her, and begins to become more independent and free. By overcoming the, "indescribable oppression, which seemed to generate in some unfamiliar part of her consciousness" (Chopin 8), Edna becomes herself, and pushes away the people around her. She alienates herself from the life she was raised in, and begins to live as she wants, and be who she truly is. Most importantly, "she [has] resolved never again to belong to another than herself" (Chopin 76). Unlike the fragile housewives who she acquaints herself with, Edna is able to discover the freedom of being an individual. Although her husband and her friends continued to pressure her to return home, she can no longer go back; now that she has a taste of a fulfilled life she can not return to her aimless life of solitude. This revelation that overcomes Edna, the reality that she is living an unfulfilled life that she must fix, ultimately becomes too much for her. The social

The Awakening By Kate Chopin Ayanna Higgins Mr. Amoroso AP Literature Topic 5 Women have been a vital part to our society since the beginning of time. However, living in a patriarchal society, we've been suppressed and constrained from being like our male counterparts. The ideal woman in the 1800's consisted of being devoted to the man, serving and reproducing for him.

In Kate Chopin’s novel, The Awakening, the main protagonist Edna Pontellier exists as the embodiment of the feminist ideas that stand as outliers in the midst of the more traditional nineteenth century beliefs. Set in 1899 near the end of this generation, Chopin’s work explores the shared attitudes of most of the novel’s cast as they respond to Edna’s search for independence and freedom, an action that challenges her conservative society. Though the radical Industrial Revolution and Feminist Movement are beginning to diffuse their collective ideas in this era, Edna’s binding role as a wife and mother are still solidified by the orthodox beliefs of the century. Among the techniques that structure The Awakening, is Chopin’s notable manipulation of setting to provide a background that becomes the impetus for Edna Pontellier’s decisions. Through these combined elements, Kate Chopin places an emphasis on the social and cultural values of the nineteenth century era in her work, The Awakening, which she simultaneously explores and fluently analyzes.

She has abandoned her Tuesdays at home, has thrown over all her acquaintances, and goes tramping about by herself, moping in the street-cars, getting in after dark.” This implies a total rejection of any ‘normal’ routine which Mr Pontellier would like Edna to led and would have been undertaken by all of the women in the Creole society. Once again Chopin