The Awakening Historicism Analysis

Edna Pontellier is a woman of great needs. Although she has a husband who cares for her and two children, she is very unhappy. She plays her roles as a mother and wife often, but still keeps doing things unmarried, barren women should do: enjoy the company of other men, ignore her children's cries, dress unladylike for the times. The story is set in the late 1800's, when women were to be in the kitchen preparing a meal for their family, giving birth to more children to help with daily chores, or sitting quietly at home, teaching the children while the husband was at work. Edna Pontellier was a woman not of her time. At only 28, she would have rather been out gallivanting with different men, traveling with them, and painting

Chopin and Freeman lived in a time when men dominated women; a woman’s job was to marry, have a home, and raise children. Women were their husband’s property and law did not protect them if they were abused. (Plaza) Owning land, making financial decisions, and voting was among the many things women could not do. Freeman and Chopin both used their literary works to shed light on those subjects.

This itself differentiates Edna from the female population, because she would not accept the idea of being someone who she wasn’t, just so that she could fit a certain image for the public.

Katherine O’Flaherty, later Kate Chopin, was born to Eliza and Thomas O’Flaherty in St. Louis, Missouri on February 8, 1850 (Deter). Unfortunately, when Mrs. Chopin was four, her father died in a train incident leaving her under the care of three independent widows’- her mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother (Deter). Mrs. Chopin’s great-grandmother, Victoria Verdon Charleville, directed her education, “giving her a taste of the culture and freedom allowed by the French that many Americans during this time disapproved of . . . through the art of storytelling” (Deter). Therefore, much of Mrs. Chopin’s success in writing about women pursuing morality, freedom, and political independence can be attributed to Victoria. Furthermore, the teachers at the St. Louis Sacred Heart Academy, a school Mrs. Chopin’s father had previously enrolled her in, “exposed her to Catholic teachings devoted to creating good wives and mothers, while also teaching independent thinking” (“Biography”).

She married Leonce not because she loved him but because she could not refuse his admiration and persistence. This marriage thrusts Edna into a foreign culture. She questions her role as a mother because she is different from the typical Creole "mother-woman." Edna defies the central perception that women are mothers first

The relatively open and honest (less suppressed)culture of the Creoles is one which catalyzes her human sensibilities. Who could blame her? Especially Madame Ratignolle, and the way Chopin describes her sensuousness and warmth, would be compelling features it seems for anyone to be attracted to and to want, almost unconsciously, to emulate. Second, the attentive nature of Robert LeBrun is so marked and attractive when compared with Leonce’s domineering, controlling, even neglectful ways in which he treats (and does not treat) his family, (but with a measure of trying to placate them as the result of his own selfishness at Klein’s). When he wins, he forgets all about the candy and peanuts he promised his children. With Edna, he is talkative, but not attentive. Still, though, Edna is culturally in over her head when it comes to the sensual honesty and astonishingly implicit trust of these men to let their wives do what they do at this time in history. Thus far, I see an ostensibly lethal combination of Mme R and Robert working, however innocently in Edna’s life.

By giving her children a sense of independance early which may enable them for success later on. While other children of the times may have a pseudo unhealthy reliance on a mother, much like Robert's brother Victor who still lives at home. Another more risky thing she did was make a statement that most women even now wouldn't agree with. Edna states: “I would give up the unessential; I would give up my money, I would give my life for my children; but I wouldn't give myself.”(Chopin 47) This statement holds quite a lot of weight in the way we can view edna. Some may call her selfish for a lack of an undying love for her children. But I view it as brutal honesty. The fact that edna is coming to this conclusion and fighting the ever pushing stream of society really shows how she is trying to fight. Giving up one's self is a very dangerous thing to do. For once you give too much you can lose who you are. But too little and people can lose sight of what you can be/who you are. As a mother edna realizes this and decides to make herself known in a different way than as a mother-woman.

she had to commit suicide. She put an end to her life, but it was actually the

Kate Chopin was an author best known for her strong leading female characters. The essence of her characters was based on her female oriented upbringing. She was raised at home by her mother, grandmother, and great grandmother and at school she was taught by nuns. The soul of

Chopin, fatherless at four, was certainly a product of her Creole heritage, and was strongly influenced by her mother and her maternal

Kate Chopin 's artistic ability would have never been so unequivocally established in the event that it was not for the conditions encompassing her life and childhood. Her dad kicked the bucket when she was just four years of age, which left her mom and grandma to raise and shape her cravings and belief systems (Charters 156). Having been raised principally by solid willed ladylike good examples, Chopin built up a preference for a greater amount of a whimsical part for ladies in the public eye. In the place where she grew up in St. Louis, she got to be known as the town 's "Most diminutive Rebel" (Davis). She was widowed and left with six youngsters to raise all alone (Charters 156). This circumstance grew a greater amount of her solid will to expound on the enthusiasm and

In several instances, she casually slips in French phrases and words. For example, the characters are referred to by social titles and not first names such as Madame Ratignolle and Mademoiselle Reisz. The central issue and theme is Edna's struggle with being the ideal, cookie cutter doting wife. She finds it hard to be as domestic and submissive as the women who were raised in a Creole household and community. She attempts to be a 'mother-wife" like the other women and ultimately ends up taking her own life because she despises it so much. Even though this work was published in 1899 it is still relevant today. Chopin's stories go hand in hand with modern feminism and the stigma that marriage is the ultimate goal.

Kate Chopin’s life and work, creates a sharply revealing portrait of modern women in Victorian world. Born in St. Louis in 1850, kate Chopin was raised by wealthy, feisty widows and educated by brilliant nuns. She endured a mysterious “outrage” committed against her by Union soldiers in her teens and suffered what todays women call a “loss of voice.“ But she survived. She had the talent and then the life experiences to become a writer. Her husband who was born in France never restrict her her. After having six children in nine years, yet she retained individuality and her wicked sense of humor. As a result of her husband sudden death she has become a completely different woman, affair with another woman’s husband was a village scandal but

Kate Chopin, née Katherine O’Flaherty, was born to stable and socially prominent parents in February 1850. She was raised in St. Louis, Missouri by her French- Creole mother, grandmother and great-grandmother, after her father was killed in a train accident (Davis 61). The household of widows helped shape Chopin’s feminist views which can be seen throughout her literary pieces. As a child, “mental and artistic growth” was encouraged (60), leading Chopin to develop a love for music and storytelling, as well as fluency in French. She married businessman Oscar Chopin at the age of twenty-five and managed to produce six children before his sudden death in 1883 (Wolff 208). Consequently, Chopin was left no choice but to

away the remainder of their lives under their husband’s thumb. In Chopin’s time period, women