In Kate Chopin's The Awakening, the main character Edna Pontellier is viewed as unstable by society due to her “radical” outlook on individuality. At the time Creole culture and norms subjectified women to the imprisonment of perfection and unrealistic standards. These societal expectations confined women from a physical, educational, mental, spiritual, etc. standpoint. Women at the time served no value to society except to serve as glorified babysitters, cooks, cleaners, and the hearts of domestic life. Thus, women like Edna were shunned by the oppressive system which silenced their voices. In the novel, Edna’s madness can be mistaken as her inability to assimilate into the suffocating Creole society in which she was immersed.
Kate Chopin establishes right away that Edna Pontellier is unique from the majority of the women in Creole society. “She is not one of us,” Madame Ratignolle warns Robert regarding his affection towards her, “she is not like us” (21). Madame Ratignolle’s insight is correct, as Edna is not Creole nor Catholic but rather a Protestant from Kentucky with progressive
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The true awakening in the novel, and in Edna, is the awakening of self. Throughout the novel, she is on a transcendental journey of self-discovery, a journey that was not smooth sailing for women in the 19th century. Edna’s awakening formulates when she realizes that she wants more out of life and herself than just being a mother and a housewife. Deep inside her, she began to feel a pull toward liberty, freeing her from all the aspects of life which restrain her newfound flourishing identity. Eventually, Edna is able to fully separate herself from her marriage and society, and sets up her own small house, in order to dissociate from society and live the way she wants to. This costs her all of her previous friends and family, and any status she had was