The Awakening Essay

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.

The author is insinuating that Edna no longer wants to be with her husband. Kate Chopin does this by slowly making Edna Pontellier leave the presence of her old life. This also shows that Mrs. Pontellier is becoming very independent because she is no longer living off of her husband and she is doing what she wants to do when she wants to do it. This was very uncommon for a mother of two children during the 1800's. Edna Pontellier's thoughts and feelings change throughout the book and this also helps better reveal her character.

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.

There are certain ideals that need to be met while being in a relationship; they play concrete roles in the stability of the partnership. The idea of Edna being confined in a marriage with Mr. Pontellier who doesn’t

The Awakening, by Kate Chopin, is the story of a woman who is seeking freedom. Edna Pontellier feels confined in her role as mother and wife and finds freedom in her romantic interest, Robert Lebrun. Although she views Robert as her liberator, he is the ultimate cause of her demise. Edna sees Robert as an image of freedom, which brings her to rebel against her role in society. This pursuit of freedom, however, causes her death. Chopin uses many images to clarify the relationship between Robert and Edna and to show that Robert is the cause of both her freedom and her destruction.

In Kate Chopin's, The Awakening, Edna Pontellier came in contact with many different people during a summer at Grand Isle. Some had little influence on her life while others had everything to do with the way she lived the rest of her life. The influences and actions of Robert Lebrun on Edna led to her realization that she could never get what she wanted, which in turn caused her to take her own life.

The humanly gift of imagination is a unique power within that subconsciously is a locomotor to both the body and spirit to a person 's individual Elysium. It goes far and beyond our cognition into an exuberant fantasy molded by our wants and desires, reaching untamed worlds. Turning imagination into realism is denounced as an impossible being, but it 's in fact the awakening to our lucid dreaming. Edna Pontellier is a woman with a heart that soared beyond the horizons into a limitless world, forced into cage by the inevitable way of life. Kate Chopin through the beautifully sculpted novel “The Awakening” condemned Edna with a mindset beyond her years, finding meaning through her unsocial actions shunned by the eyes of others. Edna used her

Throughout The Awakening, a novel by Kate Chopin, the main character, Edna Pontellier showed signs of a growing depression. There are certain events that hasten this, events which eventually lead her to suicide.

1. Edna’s position in life is a wife and mother as well as being a trophy wife for her husband; she is someone that he can show off and shower with gifts in return for her undying affection. It appears he is greatly concerned with her appearance more than how she feels when he comments that she is “burnt beyond recognition” while “looking at his wife as one looks at a valuable piece of personal property which has suffered some damage”(4). Edna is expected to carry out duties that fall under the Cult of Domesticity, such as caring for her children, tending to house orders, ensuring that she is always respectable-looking and ready for visitors. Mr. Pontellier

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.

The Awakening was a very exciting and motivating story. It contains some of the key motivational themes that launched the women’s movement. It was incredible to see how women were not only oppressed, but how they had become so accustomed to it, that they were nearly oblivious to the oppression. The one woman, Edna Pontellier, who dared to have her own feelings was looked upon as being mentally ill. The pressure was so great, that in the end, the only way that she felt she could be truly free was to take her own life.  In this paper I am going to concentrate on the characters central in Edna’s life and her relationships with them.

“Mrs. Pontellier 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” (547). She looked at and heard things as if for the first time. “The very first chords which Mademoiselle Reisz struck upon the piano sent a keen tremor down Mrs. Pontellier’s spinal column” (556). She decided that she would move out of her house with her husband and children and would move into a small apartment by herself. This is something that women of her day simple did not do. Edna was different.

    The Awakening, written by Kate Chopin, is full of ideas and understanding about human nature. In Chopin's time, writing a story with such great attention to sensual details in both men and women caused skepticism among readers and critics. However, many critics have different views with deeper thought given to The Awakening. Symbolism, the interpretation of Edna's suicide, and awakenings play important roles in the analysis of all critics.

Women characters also depict the feminist critical approach throughout the novel. Society views women as being inferior to men. For example, The Awakening states that Mr. Pontellier, “… looking at his wife as one looks at a valuable piece of property which has suffered some damage,” (3), which shows he does not appreciate his wife. He treats Edna as if she was an object that he owned, and had full possession of. Although it takes a while for these women to break free, they end up realizing

Throughout the novel, Edna becomes dissatisfied with her life, and decides that something needs to change. Right from the beginning of the novel, Edna immediately defies her husband when she feels she is being treated incorrectly. “ She said nothing, and refused to answer her husband when he questioned her” (Chopin 6). These subtle defiances monsoons into greater ones, transforming Edna into a radical feminist. As Enda starts to realize what she desires, she figures out that “love and sex do not necessarily coincide in the same object of desire” (Beer, et al 90). Edna decides to leave her husband, saying that “ I am no longer one of Mr. Pontellier’s possessions to dispose of or not. I give myself where I choose”(Chopin 108). Edna leaving her husband shows her independence from her husband; she decides she is done with the stereotypes that women are placed in during this time. Edna also undergoes a sexual realization. “ Edna grapples with the conflict between her romantic and sexual impulses, both urging her towards adultery” (Beer, et al 91). Between her love for Robert (Chopin 91) and her affair with Alcée (Chopin 92), her departure from her husband allows her to sexually explore, thus making her more independent. All of the events described depict Edna’s feminist attitudes towards her life.