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Patriarchy In The Awakening

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The Awakening and Selected Short Stories: The Awakening “The Awakening” by Kate Chopin may be a novel regarding feminism as she writes about women and their positions in society. Drawing on her own origins, Chopin utilizes familiar themes and surroundings as she grew up in New Orleans and like the Pontillier family, also vacationed in Grand Isle during the summer. The Awakening touches on the rawness and controversy women experience regarding patriarchy. Edna, the protagonist, reaches a point in her life where she begins to contemplate her fate and tries achieving self-actualization. She rebels against the boring lavish lifestyle her husband has provided her by avoiding the daily responsibilities as a housewife. She longs for sensuality and excitement which her husband could not provide, and experiments with fine arts such as music and painting. As a result, she feels torn and with raw emotions decides to leave her husband Leonce and their two young boys, Etienne and Raoul. We will analyze the role Leonce and …show more content…

He often leaves for the gentlemen’s club called Klein’s. An establishment where the New Orleans men attend to be around their peers to smoke cigars, play billiards, and dine when the food at home was not to their liking (Chopin p.12). He has his own thoughts of what a mother and wife ought to be. Edna comments to Leonce “weddings are the most lamentable spectacles on earth” which he finds bothersome (Chopin p.190). His expectations of her as a wife are a far cry from what she is able to offer him. Leonce feels she constantly defies her motherly and wifely responsibilities as she is not known to be a conventional mother as her believes her to habitually neglect the children (Chopin p.14). He forces motherhood on Edna repeatedly throughout the story as he feels she is not providing them with the required

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