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Adele In The Awakening, By Kate Chopin

149 Words1 Pages
Kate Chopin uses Adele as an example to show how Creole wifes' should act towards their husbands’ and children because Edna does not treat her husband or her kids how a Creole wife should. Adele and Edna are different in a lot of ways because Adele is part of the Creoles lifestyle, because she constantly worries about her children and is a what a “Creole wife” should be. Edna is not part of the Creole lifestyle, she never really worries about her children at all, she also is not what the “Creole wife” should be to her husband and kids. Kate also uses these key facts to show Edna's life, and how she is starting to notice that she is not really happy where she is now and that she needs to change her life. This may lead her to become more independent
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Kate Chopin develops Edna’s character so rigorously, she creates a whole new character by the end of the novel. Edna’s feat of overcoming her fears reveals the powerful message of being brave and finding

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The author uses a comparison and contrast between Madame Ratignolle and Edna Pontellier to show how these two ladies are different from one another. Chopin emphasizes how feminine Madame Ratignolle is to demonstrate how Edna seems to be an outcast from the Creole society. Chopin chooses to incorporate the appearance of the two ladies to support the fact that Edna feels like she does not fit in, especially when Leonce refers to Madame Ratignolle in some parts of the novel. How Conventionality is Being Challenged “She was blindly following whatever impulse moved her, as if she had placed herself in alien hands for direction, and freed her soul of responsibility.”

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660 Words | 3 Pages

Edna is a woman who rarely listen to her husband. Kate Chopin uses Adele to let you really see how these two are so different. Adele is a Creole who is devoted to her husband. They understood each other so well. “If ever the fusion of two

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376 Words | 2 Pages

Kate Chopin makes use of her other characters as well in revealing the theme through juxtaposition. Madame Ratignolle serves as an obedient wife who confines to society’s standards without protest and acts as a character consistently compared to Edna when another character wishes to criticize her changing. On one occasion, her husband talks down to her when she neglects her role as a wife and housekeeper by choosing to paint instead. He tells her she can paint, but not to neglect her duties, comparing her to Madame Ratignolle because she is “more of a musician than [she is] a painter” and still fulfills her necessary tasks (Chopin 95-96). Edna wishes to diverge from the societal norms, becoming independent of her responsibilities through her

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825 Words | 4 Pages

Edna fully understands that society would brand her as a terrible woman, but she does not view herself as a bad person. There is an external and internal difference that Edna hopes to one day reconcile. Chopin, instead of creating tension within Edna, created tension within the society and Edna with her newfound independence does not mind how society classifies her. Decisively, it can be concluded that the tension between outward conformity and inward questioning builds the meaning of the novel by examining Edna’s role as a wife, mother, and as nontraditional woman in the traditional Victorian period.

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1386 Words | 6 Pages

Mother and wife are also not her will; she feels restrained and loses her liberty of being that. After she heard the playing from Adele, she feels the solitude and loneliness, it seems same as her position in this era, no one understands her and feels depress toward the people, the family she encountered. On the contrary, she is touched after hearing the pianist Mademoiselle Reisz plays. It is full of power and passion, and Mademoiselle is a woman that she wants to be, independent with alternative performance in this society, she is separated and not the one of them. Edna wants to know more about her and try to be like her, but the most essential element that a independent artist should has is bravery, this is what the pianist told Edna.

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944 Words | 4 Pages

Edna Pontellier in the novel, The Awakening, is a self-driven woman determined to become independent and free whilst undergoing a significant change in behavior throughout the novel. She attempts to withstand societal expectations by doing certain things that were not socially acceptable during this time period. While doing so, she experiences many different struggles during her awakening. These struggles that Edna undergoes may be described as internal as well as external. In the awakening, there is a constant conflict between inner and outer Edna.

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1171 Words | 5 Pages

Her frequent vacations to the island, like her frequent dips into the ocean, begin to spark a personal change within the woman. A Creole man, Robert, shows Edna a new dimension of feelings she never knew she lived without, and she begins to look through life through a new lens. Having been awakened for the first time, she sees injustice and mistreatment where she saw none before. Chopin uses Edna’s new observations and reactions to the culture around her to illustrate the myriad ways women were marginalized. In an ironic twist, the white woman from Kentucky proves to be more liberated than her more traditional husband, who grew up

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925 Words | 4 Pages

Kate Chopin conveys the feelings and internal conflict of Edna Pontellier through using the ocean as a symbol of Edna’s awakening and rebirth, and birds as symbols of how women felt trapped by gender roles during this time. These symbols convey the overbearing and oppressive standards women were held to throughout the nineteenth

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425 Words | 2 Pages

The Awakening is a novel written by Kate Chopin that follows a woman named Edna Pontellier on her journey to self-awareness. Edna lived a comfortable lifestyle with her husband and two children in Louisiana during the 19th century. Despite obtaining all aspects to a perfect life, Edna became dissatisfied after meeting Robert Lebrun in Grand Isle. Robert sparked a desire for unlawful lust as well as a yearning for independence in a society full of conformed standards. Edna was unable to handle the pressures associated with achieving personal freedom which ultimately led to her death.

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1178 Words | 5 Pages

A wonderful mother, Adele also tends to her husband’s every need. Furthermore, she seems to enjoy this role, apparently thriving in it. Her friend Edna starts off like Adele but then realizes the role is drowning her. Edna and Adele are different people who, though dealt the same cards in life,

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1124 Words | 5 Pages

Edna lives in a very male dominated society. Any orders given by the husband wouldn’t dare to be challenged by the wife. Edna has given Leonce that same sort of respect until “her will had blazed up, stubborn and resistant” (Chopin 31). She reaches a point where her influences are pulling her to resist Leonce and follow her own inhibition. Edna’s emotions stir in response to Leonce and she “wondered if her husband had ever spoken to her like that before, and if she had submitted to his command” (Chopin 31).

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1210 Words | 5 Pages

This socially constructed identity is the first of the many that Edna grapples with in the text. It is the identity of women within the time period of the text. In the words of Dix, Edna’s identity is meant to be that of a typical American wife who will control the home, children and entertain socially yet remain obedient to her working husband (146). ‘Looking at his wife as one looks at a valuable piece of personal property’ (Chopin 4). The

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1036 Words | 5 Pages

CQ: Creole culture values place women in a submissive role while granting men the ability act as dominantly and freely as they wish. Why does the Creole society isolate Edna while idolizing Adele? In Kate Chopin’s

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Kate Chopin introduces her main character as “Mrs. Mallard” to signify her being married. However, within her marriage, she loses herself. Being married, she took her husband’s last name and became a wife. In a way it changed her personality. She was no longer her own self, she was someone else’s “property”.

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