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Essay On Edna Pontellier's Awakening

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Recommended: Representation of women in literature

In Kate Chopin’s novel The Awakening, mother and wife Edna Pontellier experiences a life-changing awakening in late 1800s New Orleans, Louisiana. Edna and her husband Léonce are prominent figures in the Creole society, though Edna has no love for her spouse. While it is unacceptable to have an affair in this time and culture, Edna falls in love with a younger man, Robert Lebrun, while on summer holiday in Grande Isle. Here, she begins her awakening. When the two part ways, the known womanizer, Alcée Arobin, enters her life. She has a physical relationship with him while still married, yet in love with Robert. Edna battles with her emotions to find what she wants in life. Edna finds the outcome to be that she will never be able to have what …show more content…

As the novel concludes, Edna sees how impractical her hopes are for life. She accepts that Robert and she will never be together and that she is not willing to continue living a life she is unfit for. She leaves on her own to go back to the start of all awakening: Grande Isle. Upon her arrival she goes to swim and finds herself far out. Similar to her lack of energy to continue with life, her energy to swim back to shore has disappeared. Though the ending is left ambiguous, it is likely that Edna drowns out in the water where she will never have to be someone she is not. This climactic end helps illustrate the developed changes in Edna that had shown her the unhappiness she had been feeling. She is thinking realistically and believes death is her only way out. The feelings of loneliness and failure to have what one desires is present even this day, all over the world. College students are constantly trying to plan out their lives and discover what occupation they should pursue, though more often then not, there are obstacles. Grades do not support the dream, or finances cannot manage the education needed. Feelings of disappointment and an attitude of giving up follow soon after, just as Edna experiences. Struggling to live the life one desires is one of the greatest hardships faced and is felt all around. Whether it is Edna or anyone else, change is difficult and can be devastating to life as one knows

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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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In “The Awakening”, Robert Lebrun sacrifices his love and desire for Edna Pontellier because he knows that he can not be with her. This reveals that even though Robert was in love with Edna he knew what was right and he understood why he could not be with Edna. Robert sacrifices his love when he leaves for Mexico in search of business and at the end of the novel when he decides that he can not stay with Edna in her “pigeon-house”. When Robert leaves to Mexico in search of business and riches he does not tell Edna that he was planning on leaving after spending all day with her.

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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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This married woman with two children had inadvertently fallen in love with another man. Although he leaves, Robert is the most important part of Edna's awakening. He is the one who gives her the love that her own husband will not. She starts to truly blossom when she falls for Robert. After he leaves, she often goes to Madame Lebrun's home to look at Robert's baby pictures.

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Edna from Kate Chopin’s “The Awakening” can be perceived as morally ambiguous because of her affiliations with other men, and role-defying actions; however, both contribute to “The Awakening” as a whole. Due to Edna being romantically involved with Robert, she can be perceived as morally

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In Kate Chopin’ s novel, The Awakening, there are three identities inside of the female leading role, Edna Pontellier, being a wife, mother and own self. Edna was born in 19th century at the Vitoria period, a patriarchy society, women have low freedom to achieve personal goal. She married with Léonce Pontellier, a wealthy man with Creole descent. After having a child, her life is still unchangeable and as bored as before. Until she encountered Robert Leburn, Mademoiselle Reisz, and Alcée Arobin, her value of self-cognition has changed.

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During the nineteenth century, possessions, including women, and the home represented status, wealth, and power that only men possessed. In The Awakening, the protagonist, Edna Pontellier, becomes highly conscious of herself as an individual who has the potential to be self-sufficient and do as she desires. She begins to defy the standards of woman during the nineteenth century through iconoclastic beliefs that eventually lead Edna to participating in an affair and leaving her husband, Leonce. In The Awakening, Kate Chopin uses the motif of the home to highlight Edna’s responsibilities as a mother and wife and to also track the progression and evolution of Edna’s state of freedom.

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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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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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Title: The Awakening Author: Kate Chopin Setting: Grand Isle and New Orleans in the early 19th century Genre: Tragedy Historical context: The Awakening takes place when women were seen as a man’s possession. Mr. Pontellier looks at Edna as a possession. Women were expected to stay devoted to their husband and children and remain a stereotypical housewife whose main job is to clean, cook and care for the children. (Adele) Edna rivals against these standards as she challenges society 's expectations of women during the early 19th century.

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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.

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Even as Edna has almost completed her awakening she is still viewed as nothing more than a possession of her husband's that has no free will and must be let go in order to be with Robert. Her lack of freedom can also be seen in her role as a mother. At the time a mother was expected to dote on her children and care for their every need, Edna was incapable of doing

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In the 1800’s, the societal niche of married women was clearly defined: they were meant to devote every aspect of their lives to their husbands and children. Edna Pontellier, the protagonist in Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, struggles to adhere to these standards, and eventually rebels against them. The harsh standards placed on Edna and other women in the novel are like the cages around the metaphorical birds Chopin uses to represent them. Edna's unhappiness in her societal role is realized in the ocean, which symbolizes this awakening and her attempt to escape the gender roles of the nineteenth century.

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A woman with an independent nature can be described as rebellious, passionate, and courageous. In Kate Chopin’s novel, The Awakening, the reader is introduced to Edna Pontellier, a female who epitomizes the qualities of a woman with such an independent nature. Living in a “patriarchal society” that expects women to be nothing more than devoted wives and nurturing mothers, Edna attempts to seek out her true identity as it becomes apparent how unsettled she feels about her life. Throughout The Awakening, Edna Pontellier, dissatisfied with her duties as a mother and wife, decides to pursue her own interests and express her true identity, resulting in an awakening and her finding the courage to make the changes she deems as necessary. Edna Pontellier had two young boys, Etienne and Raoul, who were ages four and five, respectively.

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This novel, The Awakening, is about a woman named Edna Pontellier learns to think of herself as an independent human being. Also, Edna Pontellier refuses to obey against the social norms by leaving her husband Leónce Pontellier and having an affair with Robert Lebrun. Kate Chopin describes societal expectations and the battle of fitting the mold of motherhood in the Awakening by how Edna Pontellier and Adele Ratignolle contribute to their family in different ways. Edna Pontellier’s attitude toward motherhood is that she is not a perfect mother-women. Adele Ratignolle’s attitude toward motherhood is that she is a perfect mother-women.

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