The Awakening By Kate Chopin: Course Analysis

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

Ranging from caged parrots to the meadow in Kentucky, symbols and settings in The Awakening are prominent and provide a deeper meaning than the text does alone. Throughout The Awakening by Kate Chopin, symbols and setting recur representing Edna’s current progress in her awakening. The reader can interpret these and see a timeline of Edna’s changes and turmoil as she undergoes her changes and awakening.

“Having added to American literature a novel uncommon in its kind as in its excellence, she deserves not to be forgotten. The Awakening, deserves to be restored and to be given its place among novels worthy of preservation”(Eble 82). Kenneth Eble is speaking of Kate Chopin in the quote above, revealing his opinion of her work. The topics mentioned by Chopin in The Awakening are highly controversial due to the time period. Nevertheless, Chopin creates an amazing structure in order to convey her message. Chopin intertwines different motifs and symbols throughout the novel in order to create meaning at the end of the novel. An important motif specific to the time period is isolation due to independence. One of the many symbols attached to this

For a person to be awakened, he or she must go through an experience that causes a sudden enlightenment in the area surrounding them. In the fictional novel The Awakening, written by Kate Choppin, the reader is taken along on the journey of a woman by the name of Edna Pontellier, who is trying to break free of the social guidelines of her time period. Mrs. Pontellier, the wife to a wealthy business man by the name of Leonce, begins to experience change not only with her physical wants but her mental desires as well. This unheard of change that Edna is going through truly is her awakening, is well described by the title of the book, and has an impact on her loved ones around her.

Kate Chopin’s The Awakening controversial protagonist - Edna Pontellier - lives a personally unsatisfying life with her idealistically perfect husband; a marriage that exists solely on the satisfaction of the Creole society they live in. In the beginning of the novel, she starts to struggle with the dominance of her outer identity that consists of how everyone sees her as the beautiful wife to a perfect, rich husband. But, when she is alone or with Robert, she begins to self-reflect on her inner identity that consists of how she sees herself and the new, rebellious freedoms that she desires. In The Awakening, the frequent symbolization of birds and the manner with how Edna interacts with music and the different men in her life illustrates

Chopin defines a “mother-woman” as someone “who idolized their children, worshiped their husbands” (8). How do Chopin and Gilman use character foils to give us insight into the protagonists and societal expectations?

When a person commits suicide, her motive is not always clear. In the novel The Awakening by Kate Chopin, a woman breaks from conformity and eventually swims out to sea in order to drown. Mikaela McConnell analyzes this piece in the article “A Lost Sense of Self by Ignoring Other in THE AWAKENING by Kate Chopin” from the journal The Explicator. She argues that Edna Pontellier’s suicide is a result of the challenges that come with “creating and re-creating self” (McConnell 41). However, this is untrue because Edna’s self-discovery happens with ease.

Kate Chopin's The Awakening is truly a novel that stands out from the rest. From the moment it was published, it has been caused women to examine their beliefs. The fact that The Awakening was shunned when first published, yet now taught in classrooms across the country is proof that The Awakening is full of rebellious and controversial ideas.

“The beginning of things, of a world especially, is necessarily vague, tangled, chaotic, and exceedingly disturbing” (Chopin 67). Change: the most frightening word in the English language; it has never came quickly, never came easily, never come without casualties. Throughout history, countless revolutions have fought with blood, sweat, and tears for the acceptance of new ideas to foster change within mainstream culture. Naturally, there is always a resilient resistance to revolution, the norm that does not embrace the change. In American history, there have been countless revolutions, from civil rights to the American revolution itself, but perhaps the longest, drastic revolution is the feminist revolution that began in the late 1800’s and arguably still happening as the gender wars. At the turn into the 20th Century, the fight between gender roles and individuality was manifested in the culture which was reflected in the reception of Kate Chopin’s The Awakening as she intentionally manipulated gendered language throughout the text.

Author Kate Chopin of The Awakening theorizes “That outward existence which conforms, the inward life that questions.” Margaret Atwood ponders upon this ideal in her Bildungsroman Cat’s Eye, in which protagonist Elaine Risley of a unique upbringing encounters life in a traditional school, in which her intrinsic values are tested by her so-called peers Cordelia, Grace, and Carol. The social conformity Elaine was forced to undergo caused her to lose herself in the process, creating the plot of the novel. Elaine’s changes in interaction, internal struggle of morality among her peers, and lack of supervision created the depressed state she portrayed throughout the novel. Had this deterioration of the self not been included in Cat’s Eye, the work

Kate Chopin went through a great amount of obstacles coming up as a child and an adult. She was born on February 8, 1850 in St. Louis, MO. Growing up around her surroundings made her the wise writer that she was. Chopin was sent off to school by her parents and her dad passed away while she was there. After her husband passed, she felt overwhelmed by all the deaths in family. All those tribulations shaped her into the writer she became.

Plot- Leonce Pontellier and his wife Edna travel to the Grand Isles for a summer vacation, with

The American author this paper and project was based upon was Kate Chopin and her book The Awakening. The Awakening was based back on the late 1800s about a women who was struggling to find herself in the crazy world that was beginning to rapidly change. Women empowerment was major in the late 1800s due to the women fighting for their rights. Through the novel Edna, the main character, finds herself, tastes independence, and then throws it all away with suicide to go out in peace. The Author Kate Chopin is a very skilled and professional author.

Chopin’s use of dynamics in this piece is very powerful its change of dynamics makes the piece more interesting and expressive. His use of dynamics define how this piece feels to me because, his use of louds and softs makes me to change my mood. When I listen that kind of melody it makes me feel sad I do not know why but they are very influential on me. Also they remember me the films of the time of the holocaust. Furthermore, this music change moods because the type of dynamic make sense and express the meaning of the music. His use of dynamics enhance the changes that I hear because they are very accurate. I were to hear the piece again using no dynamics, it would not cvonvey the same mood because as the textbook explains “a gradual increase

Life has an abundance of crossroads that we must pass in order to reach the zenith of our long and arduous journey to self-realization. One in particular is the decision to stay grounded in the relative safety of the earth or attempt to soar high in the vast sky amongst the birds and clouds. Many do not dare leave the comforts of the grass, haunted by the swift and deathly fall that is sure to follow and therefore mark anyone foolhardy to try as idiotic for even thinking of accomplishing the impossible. Yet who is the fool; the person brave enough to soar, willing to risk the unrecoverable drop down or the person who has already resigned to their position in the plains, content with this fate? Edna Pontellier, the main protagonist of Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, is conflicted by this choice after she has plucked the already fragmenting mask society has made her wear and shattered it. Now aware of the façade and free of ignorance, Edna seeks guidance from her close confidants in order steer herself in the right direction. Through the conversation had with Adele Ratignolle, the embodiment of tradition, and Mademoiselle Reisz, the embodiment of eccentricity, Edna finds the answer to her own confliction.