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Edna's Dream In The Awakening

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Music, as well as art, had influenced her emotional/ personal awakening to the fact that, drawing allows Edna to find love, peace within herself, and is the only thing she actually has control over.Her imaginative dream of being alone open the doors for her departure from Leonce's house which is a form of individuality in which seeks to build her own autonomy, she finds a new house that she named Pigeon illustrating the ideals of not being able escape society even after she moves, representing the fact that she is like a bird in which, the bird can’t escape the cage he’s in, as for Edna she can’t escape the role of woman in society.(Pg31)“ Edna began to feel like one who awakens gradually out of a dream, a delicious, grotesque, impossible dream, to feel again the realities pressing into her soul.” after haven slept alone in the hammock,she's …show more content…

Taking all her personal items to her new house awakens her self-governing life,where her family is not part of her life. Her emotional awakening opened the door for her sexual awakening in which now she feels the lost feeling for love and emptiness. The rebirth of a soul allows a new beginning for Edna, having swum in the sea in a form of baptism, her soul awakens. Edna's innate talent for drawing, reading allows her to express her feeling, which builds her sexual awakening.The feeling of being alone allows Edna to posses some strange feelings within herself, but uch feeling allows her to feel relief.(Pg72)”When Edna was at last alone, she breathed a big, genuine sigh of relief”, this foreshadows her solitude death, where she unfolds her soul to society. (Pg 27) "Think of the time I have lost splashing about like a baby! reflects her

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She experiences a symbolic rebirth, an awakening. The happiness soon comes to an end as Robert realizes they've become too close and leaves the island. Edna suddenly becoming depressed befriends Madame Ratinolle and Mademoiselle

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Terrell P. McIntyre Jr. Dr. Rose Gubele American Lit 9:50-10:40 T, Th 16 March 2017 Breaking Social Boundaries: A Journey of Self-Discovery Throughout the 1800s, gender roles were very strict and rarely questioned. Along with holding their families and homes as their highest priorities, women were also expected to be submissive to their husbands and continuously look presentable. It was quite strange for women to step outside of the harsh boundaries that were deemed as socially acceptable for them. Throughout Kate Chopin’s “The Awakening,” Edna Pontellier pushes against the perimeters set for her as a woman and works to establish herself as an individual rather than a cog in a social machine.

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In the context of the late 1800s, it was very unusual for a female of that time to be as courageous and rebellious as Edna Pontellier portrayed.  Edna Pontellier lived in a world where the free will of a woman was considered a fantasy. Thus, the dreamer Edna Pontellier began to uncover the possibilities of women after constant self-assessments initiating a spark to her awakening. A flying motif also conveys Edna Pontellier, as the feeling of being stripped of her freedom by society continues to broaden. " A GREEN AND YELLOW parrot, which hung in a cage outside the door," (Pg.1)

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Her ability to swim starts in chapter 10, and ironically Edna’s happiness then eventually leads to her bismal ending in chapter 39. Another interesting example is Edna’s relationships with Arobin and Robert, where Edna chooses to act rebellious and choose her own terms for two affair-like relationships. Either case, Edna felt “as if a mist had been lifted from her eyes, enabling her to took upon and comprehend the significance of life, that monster made up of beauty and brutality” (Chopin 84). Her relationships tore her emotions apart, but in the process angered and falsely strengthened her; this is an example of the “masking” of her characteristics. In reality, Robert and Arobin

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While Edna's demise somewhat dishonors the message of the novel, the actions she make to acquire her individuality flawlessly illustrate what The Awakening conveys. Chopin enables Edna to flutter well beyond the limitations of conventional traditions even though societal restrictions tell her to behave otherwise. Edna discovers through her knowledge as an independent woman that she does not have to rely on males to be free. By escaping from her caged life, Edna no longer feels shackled to society. She can finally regulate her life and decide her destiny as a liberated

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The other reason makes Edna realize her own self is swimming, as if a release to her. Refer to what she said in the novel, to beyond other women, it can express that her aspiration on being alternative and get rid of the constraint from the society. Also that is the first body contact with Robert, she find herself in the ocean, and there is the place she longing, also aware of the freedom. Robert, is a boy she falls in love with, yet she aware of that, if she marries to Robert, her future just same as now, she will lose her freedom.

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The only way to elude herself of the responsibilities of her life was to embrace death and drown herself in the ocean. In her death, Edna rejects the social belief that a woman’s duty are found in motherhood. At the last moment, she thinks of Leonce and the children, she admits they were a part of her life, “but they need not have thought they could possess her, body and soul” (190). This also reflects societal notion telling her to be submissive, to tend to the house, and adore her

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After swimming successfully, she develops feelings for Robert. After this awakening, Edna starts to step back and rethink her entire life; her marriage, her role, and even herself. She realizes she feels sort of imprisoned in this life she has had for so long. Edna finally starts doing things for her, she is letting herself feel an attraction for another man even though she is married and she also gets into art and has everyone in the house model for her. Rather than doing things to get the house ready for her husband or spending time playing with her children, she is distracted by all her newly found

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When she comes back from the island, this new outlook on life clashes with her husband’s old world values, and he endeavors to stop what he sees as utter madness. At one point, a family doctor recommends to Léonce that Edna spend time at her ancestral home, far away from the water, to return her behavior to what he knows as normal. Edna expresses a dislike of and actively avoids certain parts of society, but cannot fully separate herself from the motherly duties forced onto her by traditional gender roles, unlike her muse Mademoiselle Reisz. These duties, ultimately, prove to be the fetters that cause Edna to sink downward, and lead her to end her life in the same ocean where it truly

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Kate Chopin’s novel, The Awakening opens with a scene of two birds, emphasizing that the motif of birds later within the novel will play an important part with setting the constant metaphor they bring. Throughout the whole novel the motif of birds is a metaphor for the Victorian women during that period -- caged birds serve as reminders of Edna’s entrapment and the entrapment of Victorian women in general. Edna makes many attempts to escape her cage (husband, children, and society), but her efforts only take her into other cages, such as the pigeon house. Edna views this new home as a sign of her independence, but the pigeon house represents her inability to remove herself from her former life, due to the move being just “two steps away” (122).

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However, through the process of self-discovery, Edna could attain a sense of awakening through her attempts to be liberated from society's standards of how a woman should act. She wants to separate from social norms that bind her to motherhood which is discomposing to the nineteenth century. The characters including Adele Ratignolle and Mademoiselle

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As Edna becomes more comfortable in the water, she also becomes more in touch with her own emotions. One particular night, Edna is able to swim farther into the ocean than she ever had before - the same night when she realizes her own distaste with her marriage and her role in society. Chopin writes that while Edna was in the water, “a feeling of exultation overtook her, as if some power of significant import had been given her to control the working of her body and her soul (Chopin 27)”. This

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She views her children as “antagonists who had overcome her; who had overpowered and sought to drag her into the soul’s slavery for the rest of her days” (120). To Edna, there is only one way to escape the predicament of losing her soul to motherhood. She swims out into the sea in which she first awakens and swims until “the shore was far behind her, and her strength was gone” (121). In this, Edna lives up to her words that she can sacrifice her life for her children, but she can never sacrifice her soul to them. Edna's belief that death is the only option for her demonstrates that women just like her are pushed to the brink of life.

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Edna is the main character in the novel who sacrifices herself in the biggest way possible. She realizes that she cannot face the terms of motherhood and the forced marriage to Leonce Pontellier. Edna wants to be the independent women that she isn’t allowed to be, which the meaning of The Awakening is that people cannot be forced to be in a relationship with a person they don’t truly love. Towards the end of the book after Robert leaves her and as she thinks about her life and the events that have happened that she regretted.

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Edna’s inner identity reaches the breakpoint where it is necessary for her well-being that it is expressed. At this point, nothing else matters besides her intuitions and desires. This brings difficulty to her familiar relationships and friendships due to her rejection of living according to her role as a mother and a wife. Even though this conflict is addressed, it does not make an impact on her decision to remain a bit selfish through this time that she is finding herself. As a way of explaining her state of mind, Edna states that she "would give up the unessential; I would give my money, I would give my life for my children; but I wouldn't give myself.

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