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Edna in the awakening
Essay on kate chopins the awakening and how edna goes through non conformity
Edna in the awakening
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Kate Chopin develops Edna’s character so rigorously, she creates a whole new character by the end of the novel. Edna’s feat of overcoming her fears reveals the powerful message of being brave and finding
The most rewarding attributes of this experience for Edna would be the feeling of satisfaction of conquering something in a world where woman are seen as nothing; much like a child’s excitement at their newly gained knowledge. In Chopin’s own word she describes “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” (page27). Although she is not ashamed of who she is becoming there is still a need to hide which is greatly caused by her surroundings. This can be seen when Edna takes her turn reading a shared book that has been passed around the cottages. Reading this book left her wonderstruck
In Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, the main character Edna chose to confront
Edna went to go swimming, but she had suicide in mind rather that swimming. As she was walking towards the beach she thought to herself, “The Children appeared before her like antagonists who had overcome her; who had overpowered and sought to drag her into the soul’s slavery for the rest of her days. But she knew a way to elude them.” (Chopin 159). In order for Edna to defeat the societal norms and not be bound in chains from her husband and traditional womanhood; Edna had to leave her motherly role in the family and she stubbornly went against the expectations of her husband and society.
Edna fully understands that society would brand her as a terrible woman, but she does not view herself as a bad person. There is an external and internal difference that Edna hopes to one day reconcile. Chopin, instead of creating tension within Edna, created tension within the society and Edna with her newfound independence does not mind how society classifies her. Decisively, it can be concluded that the tension between outward conformity and inward questioning builds the meaning of the novel by examining Edna’s role as a wife, mother, and as nontraditional woman in the traditional Victorian period.
Edna devoted herself to her husband like every other woman did. Chopin begins to develop Edna’s character by introducing Robert Lebrun. While Edna rediscovers her suppressed feelings for Robert, her character develops into a woman who is not afraid to express her sexuality and her want for freedom. With her new found confidence she swims out in the sea by herself trying to find her own freedom. From that moment on Edna becomes the independent woman that was not recognized as respectable in this time.
She was working with great energy and interest, without accomplishing anything, however, which satisfied her even in the smallest degree. For a time she had the whole household enrolled in the service of art (Chopin 63). Ultimately, Edna does not pursue art as
In The Awakening by Kate Chopin, Edna seeks peace and happiness through finding where she fits among other characters and by avoiding the negative effects that people have on her by isolating herself. Edna Pontellier, a young mother in New Orleans is married to a very successful proud man, Mr. Pontellier and together they have 2 sons. As a family they go on vacations to Grand Isle, where Edna meets Robert a secret love interest, and begins to learn that her unhappiness is rooted in her responsibilities as a mother and wife. Throughout the novel, Chopin uses Edna’s reliance on other characters, such as Mr. Pontellier, and their reliance on her, to regulate her happiness. Change occurs when Edna realizes that her happiness will only come when she is separate from society, but she eventually understands that she cannot do this in the life she is living and chooses to simply stop living it.
Such experiences as the foregoing were not uncommon in her married life. (Chopin III)” Chopin uses the super detailed description of Edna crying to appeal to the audience and demonstrate how Edna’s current situation is exceedingly unpleasant. In both situations the authors use pathos to appeal to the audience and show the characters in dark and unpleasant situations to display how horrendous their situations
Edna experiences the hardships of striving to break as a “ [feeling] like one who awakens gradually out of a dream, a delicious, grotesque, impossible dream, to feel again the realities pressing into her soul … the exuberance which had sustained and exalted her spirit left her helpless and yielding to the conditions which crowded her in … clutching feebly at the post before passing into the house.” (79). Through the imagery of a weight on her mind and feeble body, Chopin conveys her inability to find the strength to break the chains of the archetypal female identity. Extremely fleeting, her momentary empowerment clearly validates her circular growth rather than a building of personal development.
The most apparent manner in which Chopin presents Edna’s moral ambiguity is through her actions and how they contradict her image. Particularly, this essence is most evident in moments where Edna achieves a new accomplishment or makes certain meaningful decisions for herself. Throughout The Awakening, Edna is continuously learning about what she is capable of and takes drastic steps towards her ultimate awakening as an individual. One of the first instances Chopin presents is when Edna first swam in the sea: “She wanted to swim far out, where no woman had swum before… She would not join the groups in their sports and bouts, but intoxicated with her newly conquered power, she swam out alone” (Chopin 30).
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
The term freedom slightly differs from person to person; there is no set definition. We all seek freedom to do and be what we want. Throughout history, people have taken extraordinary measures to gain their freedom and define the word for themselves. For example: Martin Luther organized peace protests to speak against segregation of the blacks, William Wilberforce created a petition signed by one million English citizens to set captives free in England, and finally Harriet Tubman put herself in the face of danger to help herself along with others escape slavery. In The Awakening, by Kate Chopin, the main character, Edna, desperately wants freedom from her husband and kids; in other words, no responsibilities.
In the late 1800s, nearly all women were viewed as subservient, inferior, second class females that lived their lives in a patriarchal and chauvinist society. Women often had no voice, identity, or independence during that time period. Moreover, women dealt with the horrors of social norms and the gender opposition of societal norms. The primary focus and obligation for a woman to obtain during the 1800s was to serve her husband and to obey to anything he said. Since women were not getting the equality, freedom, or independence that they desired, Kate Chopin, an independent-minded female American novelist of the late 1800s expressed the horrors, oppressions, sadness, and oppositions that women of that time period went through.
On April 23, 2017, I took part in volunteering at the 9Health Fair at Community College of Aurora. Before showing up we all were e-mailed instructions on the Health fair protocols for taking blood pressure (BP), performing Body Mass index (BMI) and pulse oximetry (02 sat). As well as, the Ask a Medical Question/Get a Referral station. Ask a Medical Question/ Get a Referral Protocol was the station I was assigned to.
