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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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