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Kate Chopin's The Awakening

1474 Words6 Pages

The Awakening The Awakening was written during the Victorian period. Women were not allowed to be independent. There were many strict behavioral and other conventions that one must adhere to, mainly women. Men in that time were known as powerful and independent where as women where known as weak and dependent. In the early 1800’s, women were not able be as free as they are today. A Victorian woman personal life center around her home, husband, and children. Women were meant to accept this position in the home, and be satisfied, but Edna was not satisfied. She always seemed out of the around other women. She was a wife and mother, but not the typical Victorian wife and mother. She wanted something else. She did not like her role. She …show more content…

Kate Chopin was an American writer known for her stories about the inner lives of sensitive, daring woman. The Awakening was widely condemned. Critics called it morbid, vulgar, and disagreeable, but after the 1950’s, it was rediscovered and praised for its truthful depictions of women’s lives. She was a mother of six. She lost her father early and was raised in an all-female household so she had a strong sense of female independence. In the book, The Awakening by Kate Chopin, Edna is caught between her desires for independence and freedom and the constraining notions of Victorian society talks about Edna Pontellier and how she was not happy in her marriage. It was evident how unsettled Edna feels about her life. As a reader, you can interpret this by her thoughts and actions. In The Awakening, Edna finds the courage to make changes in her life. Throughout the novel, Kate Chopin uses symbols like birds and the ocean and throughout the novel, you can interpret these and see a timeline of Edna’s changes as she finds her …show more content…

Things that she never experienced, once she experienced them, it was hard for not to want those things. She knew it was wrong but once she was awakened that way, it was hard for her not to seek and want it. Edna’s affairs with the three men awakened her

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Edna Pontellier In The Awakening

757 Words | 4 Pages

The Awakening Essay Edna Pontellier in The Awakening strives to find her individuality and personal freedom. However, Edna lives in a time when women are expected to live their lives as wives and mothers, not as people with their own volition. When she begins to awaken from her state of submission she finds herself and strays outside the realm of social acceptance in doing so. She does not obey her husband’s will without question, she is not a mother-woman who devotes herself solely to her children. She would rather be wandering the city or painting than taking callers and keeping up the house.

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Figurative Language In The Awakening

770 Words | 4 Pages

For example, Edna is metaphorically being related to “one who awakens gradually out of a dream,” and her wishes for a relationship outside of her dull, unsatisfying marriage are alluded to through the contrasting diction describing, “a delicious, grotesque, impossible dream.” However, when she “awakens,” she is depressed by the harsh reality that a relationship of this nature is unlikely due to society’s standards. Additionally, the reader can infer that Edna remained outside in a subtle act of defiance to her husband’s overbearing authority over her. Because of this, her fatigue ultimately signifies submission to her husband’s command, a command which “left her helpless and yielding to the conditions which crowded her in.” This drowsiness terminated “the exuberance which had sustained and exalted her spirit.” The metaphor comparing Edna to one who awakens from a dream shows that this submission was equally as disappointing to Edna as realizing that an enjoyable scenario is not a reality would be to a dreamer.

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Outward Conformity In Kate Chopin's The Awakening

825 Words | 4 Pages

It is common for people in everyday society to conform to society’s expectations while also questioning their true desires. In the novel, The Awakening, by Kate Chopin, the main protagonist Edna Pontellier is said to possess, "That outward existence which conforms, the inward life that questions." In other words, Edna outwardly conforms while questioning inwardly. Kate Chopin, uses this tension between outward conformity and inward questioning to build the meaning of the novel by examining Edna’s role as a wife, mother, and as nontraditional woman in the traditional Victorian period. Edna outwardly conforms to society’s expectations by marriage.

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The Female Artist In Kate Chopin's The Awakening

248 Words | 1 Pages

One sign of symbolism that has show is, The Awakening, which is the rebirth of Edna as an artist. Furthermore, Edna’s memories  showed figures of regression toward the artistic side. Presumably, some of the three main characters, helped Edna’s artistic birthing and development. Edna has been obtaining mastery over herself and things she would like to do with herself or others. She had been growing tired of things that she usually did like going to church.

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Internal Events In Kate Chopin's The Awakening

1233 Words | 5 Pages

Her relationship with her husband has become less passionate over the years, and Edna realizes how unhappy her marriage to Mr. Pontellier has become. The strain between Edna and her husband adds to the climax because it stems the multiple awakenings she experiences. The freedom and empowerment awakenings made Edna realize how she has control over her own life and can do whatever her heart

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External Expectations In Kate Chopin's The Awakening

889 Words | 4 Pages

As people grow old they tend to realize the mistakes they have made in life and try to make up for them. These realizations are mostly internal; however, there could be some external manifestations. The Awakening, by Kate Chopin shows how Edna has a realization that having a family is not what she wanted in life. Chopin is able to create a feeling of suspense and excitement through this event by illustrating Edna’s inner thoughts, including her past, the way she starts to act towards others and demonstrating the steps she takes towards freeing herself up. A reflection of Edna's past is described in the novel in order to represent how she wants to go back to her old self.

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Edna's Characterization In The Awakening

467 Words | 2 Pages

Edna’s characterization throughout The Awakening, by Kate Chopin, describes Edna as someone with burning passion who desires to improve not only her life, but the lives of future generations. However Edna’s actions make her often seem weak to the oppressive people around her; sometimes, and in this case unfortunately, good ideas and beliefs are stopped cold by one’s surrounding influences. Edna’s feminist attitude, though formidable, is no match for the individuals who accept the current society’s customs. I find Edna to be a weak person from a general standpoint. However the story masks this obviousness fact by illustrating some of Edna’s questionable actions.

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Figurative Language In The Awakening

1338 Words | 6 Pages

Morbid, vulgar, and disagreeable are just a few descriptors used by critics to describe Kate Chopin’s The Awakening. Chopin is amongst the first feminist writers of the twentieth century writing two novels and about a hundred short stories, most of which the protagonist is a woman. Although Chopin wrote other short stories that were considered controversial none of them received as much criticism as The Awakening. Set in the late nineteenth century the story follows Edna Portellier who has been awakened to her own desires and even though she has a husband and children she decides to pursue those yearnings.

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Adultery In The Awakening

499 Words | 2 Pages

In “The Awakening,” Kate Chopin introduces many complex characters, one of which is Edna. Edna commits adultery, but throughout the work, the reader reacts sympathetically towards her, because they begin to understand that this is the only control she has over her own life. Set in 1899, “The Awakening” acknowledges the expectations of a wife and mother through the character of Edna Pontellier. Women of this time were generally tasked with the responsibility of taking care of children and the house. Readers first see this expectation in an exchange between Edna and her husband, Leonce, in the beginning of the book, where Leonce tells Edna that she “habitually neglects” her children, saying that “if it was not a mother’s place to look after the children, whose on earth was it?”

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The Awakening Literary Analysis

729 Words | 3 Pages

The novella, The Awakening, is about Edna Pontellier and her conflicts with the standards of society. Women of the society are expected to be the ideal wife, which consist of staying at home, taking care of her children, and worshiping her husband. The short novel starts off with Edna and her family on vacation at La Grand Isle. While at La Grand Isle, spending her time with Robert Lebrun, Edna realizes that she needs to become her own person. Throughout their time at La Grand Isle Robert and Edna become very close and almost lovers.

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Edna Pontellier Vs. Society In Kate Chopin's The Awakening

633 Words | 3 Pages

In the time period that the novel is set, it was a great expectation of women to be stay at home mothers and be the perfect wife. At the time, women had little to no rights and Kate Chopin’s novels broke the mold for women characters. In “The Awakening,” Edna is the opposite of what women are supposed to be; she wants to be in a liberal relationship rather than being held down by her husband. Her mindset changes when she meets Adele, which opens Edna up to having more freedom and learning more about herself and her sexuality. Her first conflict against society is when she starts to have relations with Robert, a swimming instructor.

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Self Discovery In Kate Chopin's The Awakening

515 Words | 3 Pages

Like a child, Edna is seen acting implausibly to the first thing that pops into her head, she is too hasty with her decision. In the novel Chopins stated, “They were women who idolized their children, worshipped their husbands, and esteemed it a holy privilege to efface themselves as individuals and grow wings as ministering angles.” Towards the end of the novel the Awakening is left with the feeling that Edna could never attain what she has imagined herself to

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Dissociation Of Women In The Awakening

2051 Words | 9 Pages

(The Awakening Chopin, 37). This surge of emotions comes from her regaining of consciousness. This new found control allows Edna to explore who she really is by trying to pursue her painting career. As she begins to discover herself, Edna starts to push pass the normal expectation for women. Edna buys her own home and plans on leaving her husband.

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Summary Of The Awakening By Kate Chopin

606 Words | 3 Pages

Throughout The Awakening Kate Chopin contradicts the socially acceptable role that women are supposed to play in society. For the nineteenth century Chopin had very radical feminist views and her writing was considered very progressive at the time. While today we may not see it that way Chopin ventured into virtually unexplored literary modus operandi. Chopin addresses the underlying generalizations of women in religious, social, and cultural aspects through Edna the main character of the novella, as she uses her to break down traditional gender roles for women at this time while simultaneously propagating early feminist ideology. Edna was a rarity for the time.

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Women In The Awakening By Kate Chopin

1335 Words | 6 Pages

The role of a woman in the history of the United States and in the Soviet countries has changed, perhaps, equally dramatically, but it was still under different historical and cultural circumstances. In fact, in the United States the active invoke of oeuvre in the theme of women's equality began earlier than in the countries of the Soviet territory. Thus, between 1883 and 1900, in America around hundreds novels were dedicated to a new, independent and individual type of woman. In the light of this, Kate Chopin is a vivid representative of feminism in American culture and her novel The Awakening (1899) penetrated into the very essence of women's self-awareness of that time. In the center of the novel is Mrs. Pontellier, who has always lived

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