The Character Of Mrs. Schachter In The Awakening

Born in 1851 to a wealthy family, Kate Chopin was an unconventional woman. She dressed in strange clothing, smoked, and went on unaccompanied walks, something unheard of during this time period. In the 1890s, Chopin turned to writing after an emotional breakdown due to the death of her husband. Her writing generally received good reviews from critics, but nothing brought widespread public attention until the publication of her second novel, The Awakening. Published in 1899, the story of Edna Pontellier’s sensual awakening and abandonment of her family was just as unconventional as Chopin herself. It was met with harsh criticism and surrounded by controversy. Sensitive to the pushback, Chopin retreated into the background, publishing few more

(Wiesel 25). When they finally enter the camp and she sees the real smoke coming from the crematorium, this connection becomes obvious. Furthermore, the treatment of Mrs. Schächter also foreshadows the treatment of the people in the camp.

She struggles with accepting reality, even when there are clear signs of the truth. An example of this is when her father warns her about playing with fire after she burns their shed down and endangers her brother, saying “you all got a little to close to it today” (Walls 61). As her story continues she starts to see the consequences fire creates. After burning down a hotel, putting her whole family in danger she excepts the truth about what it does and slowly starts to further herself with it.During this time her parents actions start to affect her siblings in a worse way and she starts to have doubts about her father stating, “I listened to dad’s plans and tried to encourage him, hoping that what he was saying was true but I was also pretty sure it wasn’t” (Walls 171). As fire becomes more absent in her life so does the hope that her parents will succeed at improving their

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.

She had also lost faith and from what Wiesel had said, “ she was quiet woman, who worked to support her family.”(Wiesel 22). Since Madame Schachter had been separated from most of her family, except one of her sons, she was slowly driven to insanity. Many of the Jews had thought that she was insane because she would scream that she could see a fire and that it was a terrible one. When everyone was told to get off of the train that brought them to Birkenau, Madame Schachter had stayed on the train with her son and were most likely killed. It was later thought that Madame Schachter was not losing her mind, but having visions of the crematories where many Jews would soon

It’s not lethal…” (11) Shortly after, they were sent off to Auschwitz. Another example of this ignored foreshadowing is on the way to the concentration camps. Mrs. Schächter, a member of Wiesel’s community, began to scream of a fire in the distance. She was quickly dismissed as tired, her claims being false. “She is hallucinating because she is thirsty, poor woman…

Madame Schachter’s deranged warning was important because she pictured torture would soon happen. “ ‘Fire! I see fire! I see fire!’ ” (Wiesel 24). Her screaming and moaning of the fire the passengers on the train. A group of young men began to beat and gag Mrs. Schachter because her moans were distracting. After long hours in the train, the Jews and Madame Schachter arrived at a camp. “Flames rising from a tall chimney into the black sky” (Wiesel 28). Once the Jews walk in, their amazed and shocked by Mrs. Schachter's premonition. They soon realize the “fire” she was screaming about was right in front of their eyes. “In front of us, those flames. In the air, the smelling of burning flesh. It must have been around midnight, We had arrived, In

Edna gains metaphorical wings in the form of self-actualization and newfound freedom. However, she strays too close to the harmful and unobtainable thing that is a relationship outside of marriage with someone she actually loves, Robert. In doing so, she brings about her own downfall.

I see a fire! I see a fire!” (Wiesel 24). Everyone in the cart began to panic and look out to window; however, there was nothing but the darkness of the night sky. Madame Schachters episodes kept going on throughout the night until others had to beat her in order for her to be quiet. The train arrived at Auschwitz, and as Madame Schachter began to scream again, “the train stopped, this time we saw flames rising from a tall chimney into a black sky” (28). Whether Madame Schachter was actually seeing the flames or they were just visions in her mind, she was a warning to the others to be afraid of the fire. In the novel, The Hiding Place, Corrie’s only brother Willem writes a doctoral thesis of a terrible evil that is taking place in Germany. He wrote this paper at the university he was attending. Willem spoke of a hatred for human life that the world has never seen before, “He said, seeds were being planted of a contempt for human life such as the world had never seen” (ten Boom 29). There is no explanation as to why these warnings were ignored. Survivors today beat themselves up psychologically asking, why? Why did I not listen? Why were we all so oblivious to all of the rumors?

Mrs.Schachter is a prime example of a prophecy in the book Night because she was able to know what was going to happen in the near future. For example, when on the train she gets separated from from her husband, so she begins to go insane and starts to scream about seeing a terrible fire. People began saying,”She is hallucinating because she is thirsty, poor women.” Consequently, she was beat for having to yell when others were trying to sleep so she could be quite, but the worst part was that everything that she said was coming true. When they arrive to their destination the smell of burning flesh and the sight of humans being burned was traumatizing which effected every single Jew, for they feared death. The men began saying Kabbalah to themselves

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.

She longs to be even more evil, and tries to commune with unseen spirits to help her. She says,

The depth of her want of evil is seen at the end of her soliloquy:

During the devastating time of World War II, a Jewish teenage girl wrote a diary about the gruesome events she witnessed, this diary was named, Diary of a Young Girl, Anne Frank. Anne Frank lived in Holland and went into hiding when her sister, Margot, got a letter to go to a reception camp. The Franks faced terrifying moments during hiding. They witnessed war outside their window and stayed in the same house without even going outside for about two years.To add on, the Franks had to keep in mind how every day they could be arrested or even die. Sadly Anne and her family are arrested and are sent to Auschwitz, a concentration camp where she would later die. While in hiding, the Franks and the Van Daans, who were also in hiding with them,