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Edna Pontellier's Suicide In The Awakening

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Edna Pontellier, the main character in Kate Chopin’s, The Awakening, is portrayed as an incredibly independent woman and one who tends to reject almost all traditional societal norms, and instead chooses to fight her way towards emancipation from her husband, a foreign concept during the time period in which this novel was written in. Edna’s struggles to gain this independence so strives so strongly for, and in doing so she manages to separate herself from her husband, and reunite with a lover, Robert, from her past that she had forsaken when she married. All these events that work to emancipate Edna from her former life and get her the freedom she craves, ultimately leads her to her unpredicted suicide. While the motives of her suicide seems to be confusing, when looking into this issue more indepthly, Edna’s motives for killing herself can be more easily understood. …show more content…

While not only, knocking the idea of traditional female ideals, she also gets the chance to show her absolute disdain for commitment in marriage, most likely due to her affair with the man she truly loved, Robert. When Edna’s husband decides to leave her alone and goes on an extended trip, she finally puts her words of dissatisfaction into action and, as an act against societal norms and traditional obedient women ideals, moves out of the house that she shares with her husband, and instead, lives on her own in order to become more independant. A woman having any type of independence during this time period was a completely radical idea, and she struggles to find a normal

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Sacrifice In the book The Awakening Edna Pontellier sacrifices who she is to try to be a mother-woman. In her society and life she is expected to be the caring wife who takes care of the children and her husband. However, Edna sacrifices her character, dreams and freedom because she is trying to fit in. Edna Pontellier is a mother of two in the south during a time period in which women are expected to be obedient, lady-like and caretakers.

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The Awakening Promt #5 I think that Edna’s suicide was due more to her failure to escape from what she was supposed to do as a mother and a housewife, especially when she lost Robert, than giving up and giving herself to the sea. There were many times where she has neglected to be a good mother to her children and a good housewife. Just as in chapter three page 5, she doesn’t even notice or seem to care that her child has a fever. In chapter seven page 18, she would sometimes forget her children and she even felt their absence as a relief.

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I grew up hearing the saying that a little girl could have an old soul, or that someone is well beyond their years. These sayings are popular to societies, because they try to explain why certain individuals differentiate from the acceptable norms in ways that may be more complicated than just personality traits. In The Awakening, Edna Pontellier is no exception. Her society’s expectations differ from who she is and how she is willing to act so that she would fit in. Chapter one of The Awakening begins the story with several examples of how Edna does not fit in with her society.

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In the story, “The Awakening,” by Kate Chopin, the main character, Edna Pontellier truly goes through an “awakening”, or self-discovery throughout the story. It is quite interesting how at a glance, Edna is seen as an elegant and devoted wife and mother, but in reality, she was not satisfied with both her marriage and her current lifestyle, and yearned to be an independent woman. It is clear that this story is ideal to teach in American Literature for several reasons. First and foremost, the story was a psychological journey rather than a physical one. For this reason, a reader must analyze and make sense of the thoughts and feelings that Edna shared throughout the book to come to conclusions about how she has gone through an “awakening.”

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It is common for people in everyday society to conform to society’s expectations while also questioning their true desires. In the novel, The Awakening, by Kate Chopin, the main protagonist Edna Pontellier is said to possess, "That outward existence which conforms, the inward life that questions." In other words, Edna outwardly conforms while questioning inwardly. Kate Chopin, uses this tension between outward conformity and inward questioning to build the meaning of the novel by examining Edna’s role as a wife, mother, and as nontraditional woman in the traditional Victorian period. Edna outwardly conforms to society’s expectations by marriage.

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Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, is a controversial novel due to the suicide of the protagonist, Edna Pontellier, as well as the lofty concepts and ideologies that the book conveys. Throughout the novel there are multiple indicators including themes, symbols, and contextualization that provide evidence that Edna made an impartial decision and intentionally committed suicide, knowing that she would do so before she even entered the water. Critics have wrestled with this concept, as well as counter arguments that imply that Edna’s suicide was unforeseen, and developed in-depth analysis’ that support and sometimes oppose the idea that Edna Pontellier deliberately entered the water knowing that she would kill herself. Multiple themes are present throughout

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Edna constantly struggles to realize her true desires and to understand her inner emotions and personal preferences. Part of her is always trying to establish a new outer persona while also trying to determine what she wants on the inside. She has an inner conflict between loving her family and showing compassion for them, or facing her honest yearning for a different lifestyle, breaking away from the expectations and standards of society. In the end, this internal argument causes her to fully realize that in her time period, what she truly wants is unattainable, especially after dealing with rejection from Robert and disappointment in her marriage. Overall, Mrs. Pontellier is trying to be herself in a world where a pre-existing set of rules already determine who she

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Edna begins to understand her own thoughts and values, and acknowledges that she is her own human being who should be entitled to her own desires and ambitions, and she is not willing to revert to being a wife and mother only… Thus, Edna is trapped in a world in which she is not accepted for who she wants to be, as she cannot adjust to being who society wants her to be.” (Malinen 19). Edna’s awakening to feminism makes it impossible for her to conform to what society declares a woman should be; thus, all of the negative changes she experiences are due to her change in ideals. As demonstrated, Edna’s support of feminism could not have survived in the time period in which she lived, because her beliefs created more negative outcomes for her than the confidence she gained from her realizations could support.

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The ending of Kate Chopin's novel “The Awakening” has been long debated over whether or not the main character Edna commits suicide in the end. Many critics and readers argue that her death, in the end, was not intentional and rather the consequence of her actions. Others believe that she never actually died in the end and the book ends before she swims back to shore. Contrary to these ideas, I think that Edna's suicide was intentional as she had planned it right after she found Robert's notes saying he was leaving. She planned the suicide that night not specifically wanting to die but feeling as if she had no other choice and death was her last hope at an “awakening”.

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Edna Pontellier dreams of breaking free from her social status, as a wife of a wealthy husband, with two children, in the Victorian era. While most women of the time would crave this seemingly perfect life, the protagonist of Kate Chopin’s novel, The Awakening, comes to the realization that she would much rather bare independence than a name for herself. Edna befriends artist and feminist, Mademoiselle Reisz, and through multiple affairs, moving into a “Pigeon House,” and pursuing a passion of painting, she begins to get a sense of what is truly important to her; this being self-reliance. Throughout the course of the novel, Mrs. Pontellier grapples with the idea of becoming a self-sufficient woman, and Chopin uses the motif of birds --various

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In The Awakening the main character Edna is going through a life changing event. Edna unfortunately is living in an era where women are supposed to be dependent and devoted to their husbands and a full time mother. Edna doesn’t want to play that role anymore and she wants to become independent. Edna’s want for independence and becoming her own person is finally achieved when she sacrifices her life and kills herself. Edna sacrificing her life shows how her values begin to change from only caring about her family’s needs to now caring about her own needs/wants.

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Some people believe that suicide is the only way to deal with a lot of problems. Back in the 19th century, women were seen as only having one specific role. That role being a loyal wife and a loving mother to her children. In the short novel The Awakening by Kate Chopin, Edna is a married woman who begins to experience her “awakening”. She becomes more feminine and independent as the story goes on.

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Early in the novel, she lives her life in misery like a bird trapped in a cage. She realizes that she should get to live the life she wants without following society’s expectations. This is shown when she begins to decline her daily duties such as not accepting any visitors on Tuesday, maintaining a well­balanced household, and not caring for her children. Ultimately, Edna becomes an impulsive and selfish woman leading her to drown herself in the sea. Kate Chopin uses Edna to show that change along with too much independence can lead to

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Over 50 % of all people who die by suicide suffer from major depression. Depression itself is often seen as a growing dilemma in Edna Pontellier's life, as she grows more and more intolerant towards her problems of being enslaved by her children and dominated by men. However, throughout the storyline of The Awakening, Kate Chopin uses the sea and music as symbols to reveal Edna's compelling desires to be free and how one must break away from society to achieve an independent self unit. In effect, these symbols help the reader understand the ultimate surrendering Edna has to undergo to unshackle herself from Victorian reform.

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In the novel, The Awakening by Kate Chopin, the main character, Edna Pontellier, makes the decision to become a completely independent by straying away from the restraints placed onto her by her husband, children and society. In the end of the novel, the audience is left to determine why Edna decides to commit suicide. The predominant reason Chopin reveals throughout the novel is the idea that suicide is a way for Edna to escape the confined life she was living and truly become the free woman she is dreaming of becoming. Since Edna lived during a time during women were oppressed in every way possible, Edna’s search for freedom is limited.

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