The Awakening : Reflective Statement Essay

Kate Chopin’s The Awakening depicts Edna Pontellier’s struggle to find and assert herself within the cultural constraints of late 19th century America. Like her name “Pontellier”, which means “one who bridges,” it implies that Edna is in a transition between two worlds but not fully embedded in either. Her intent is to bridge the limited world of the mother-woman to that of selfhood.

Romanticism put a lot of influence on changing, and in the novel Edna is influenced by art to transform herself. As the book progresses Edna learns to do what she wants even if it defied normal social guidelines for women. Chopin makes this easy to see when she says, “But when she was there beside the sea, absolutely alone, she stood naked in the open air…” (Chopin 124).

Kate Chopin’s book The Awakening published in 1899, provides a snapshot of Creole society through a neutral point of view. The male dominated French-Louisiana society provides a challenge for the main character, Edna Pontellier to adapt to. Through the character of Edna Pontellier, we the audience, see both an emotional and physical awakening. After awakening, Edna tries to combat the societal structures of motherhood which define her as the wife of motherhood and force her identity as the wife of Leoncé and the mother of Raoul and Etienne instead of her own self-defined individual. Chopin’s concentration on two other principal females outlines Edna’s options; either

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.

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.

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

As the novel progresses, Edna is able to escape from the hands of Leonce Pontellier, and she moves into a small house down the street in which she calls the pigeon house. The symbol of the bird is used here by saying she may be able to release herself from Leonce but she isn’t able to release herself from society, that she if forever trapped. In the end of the novel, before Edna’s tragedy, a bird with a broken wing crashes into the sea. This bird can be connected with the advice that Mademoiselle Reisz told Edna that she needed strong wings to soar. The connection for shadows Edna’s tragedy, and reveals her complete failure to find complete freedom and happiness.

In addition to the incorporation of symbolism, Kate Chopin writes the story of Edna Pontellier with descriptive, sensory imagery that significantly follows her path of discovery. Throughout the entirety of the text, Edna finds herself beginning to long for Mademoiselle Reisz’s

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.

Sacrifices can define one’s character; the definition can either be the highest dignity or the lowest degradation of the value of one’s life. In The Awakening, Kate Chopin implicitly conveys the sacrifice Edna Pontellier makes in the life which provides insight of her character and attributions to her “awakening.” She sacrificed her past of a lively and youthful life and compressed it to a domestic and reserved lifestyle of housewife picturesque. However, she meets multiple acquaintances who help her express her dreams and true identity. Mrs. Pontellier’s sacrifice established her awakening to be defiant and drift away from the societal role of an obedient mother, as well as, highlighting the difference between society’s expectations of

These first thirteen chapters chronicle the daily life of Edna Pontellier, The Awakening’s protagonist. The novel opens on Mr. Pontellier; he is smoking a cigar and reading the newspaper while idly observing the life and activity around him. The novel turns its attention to his wife, Edna Pontellier. She is described as “rather handsome than beautiful” and has a face with a “certain frankness of expression,” an intriguing description if there ever was one. She is accompanied by Robert Lebrun, the son of Madame Lebrun, the owner of “the house” at which the Creole aristocracy stayed on the Grand Isle. They are rather close companions; Robert has chosen to follow her around for the summer, as is later revealed to be his custom. It’s revealed that Edna is an American woman from “the old Kentucky bluegrass country.” As the day progresses, Chopin details the tiny minutiae of married life that have disappointed both Leonce and Edna; Leonce feels hurt by her dismissiveness- “He thought it very discouraging that his wife, who was the sole object of his existence, evinced so little interest in things which concerned him, and valued so little his conversation…”- while Edna resents his overbearing conventionality- “An indescribable oppression, which seemed to generate in some unfamiliar part of her consciousness, filled her whole being with a vague anguish.” The Pontelliers reconcile before Leonce leaves for New Orleans

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.

In the story about Edna Pontellier a major theme is her omitted self discovery. In the story we can see how Chopin uses style, tone and content to make the reader understand how it was for a person challenging many of the beliefs of the society at the beginning of the twentieth century.

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.

In Kate Chopin’s novel, “The Awakening”, Edna finds herself in a society where women were socially confined to be mothers and wives. This novel embodies the struggle of women in the society for independence along with the presence of women struggling to live up to the demands that their strict culture has placed upon them. A part of Edna wants to meet the standards of mother and wife that society has set, however her biggest desire is to be a woman free from the oppression of a society that is male dominant. Readers will find that the foundation of “The Awakening” the feminist perspective because of the passion that Edna has for gaining her own identity, and independence,