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The Role Of Motherhood In The Awakening By Kate Chopin

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During the late 19th century, women had significantly less freedom than they have today. They were expected to bear children and devote their entire lives to them. Madame Ratignolle from The Awakening is an epitome of a woman who accepts the role society gives her. For instance, she eagerly states that she is willing to give up her life for her children (Chopin 52). While some women are suitable for the role of motherhood, others are forced into it. Edna Pontellier is one such character. She feels like there is more to life than simply taking care of her children, but her society dictates that she comply with her obligations. In The Awakening, Kate Chopin uses Edna Ponteiller’s struggle between her duties as a mother and her desire to be free …show more content…

She views her children as “antagonists who had overcome her; who had overpowered and sought to drag her into the soul’s slavery for the rest of her days” (120). To Edna, there is only one way to escape the predicament of losing her soul to motherhood. She swims out into the sea in which she first awakens and swims until “the shore was far behind her, and her strength was gone” (121). In this, Edna lives up to her words that she can sacrifice her life for her children, but she can never sacrifice her soul to them. Edna's belief that death is the only option for her demonstrates that women just like her are pushed to the brink of life. For those who are not as fortunate to escape with their sense of self intact, they often do lose their souls and become mere property whose only purpose in life is to take care of the children they never wanted to have. Kate Chopin demonstrates how unfair it is that so many women do not have a choice in their own lives. While men can escape parenthood as Mr. Pontellier has done when he leaves to go to a club with his friends, women are forced to take care of their children because it is impossible for them to be seen as respectable without adhering to what society deems is proper. The lack of freedom drives many women like Edna to take their own

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History is filled with tales of those who were willing to risk it all in order to be the change that the world needed. In the book, The Awakening by Kate Chopin, Edna Pontellier, realizes the sins that are imparted upon her by society and is willing to sacrifice everything about her past self in order to be break free of the chains that entangle her. Edna’s sacrifices include her comfortable lifestyle and esteemed reputation; however, to Edna these are small sacrifices that are needed in order to progress as an individual and expand into a new realm of independence. As she develops throughout the story, she starts to value a sense of independence and of equality more and more. However, the bonds placed on her by upper-class society's expectations mean that in order to achieve a position in life where she can embody her values, she must sacrifice her current culture and position.

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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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In Kate Chopin’ s novel, The Awakening, there are three identities inside of the female leading role, Edna Pontellier, being a wife, mother and own self. Edna was born in 19th century at the Vitoria period, a patriarchy society, women have low freedom to achieve personal goal. She married with Léonce Pontellier, a wealthy man with Creole descent. After having a child, her life is still unchangeable and as bored as before. Until she encountered Robert Leburn, Mademoiselle Reisz, and Alcée Arobin, her value of self-cognition has changed.

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“He reproached his wife with her inattention, her habitual neglect of the children. If it was not a mother's place to look after children, whose on earth was it” (Chopin 5)? In The Awakening, Edna’s husband Leonce directs his wife’s attention to his displeasure with her lack of responsibility for their children to display his dominance as a man in the Victorian Era. Although biologically Edna is a mother; she finds it hard to be a motherly woman without giving up her own set of personal beliefs and values entirely. Kate Chopin uses setting, characterization, and symbolism in The Awakening to show how gender roles force both men and women to conform to the stereotypes within society and the difficulty involved in doing so.

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Often times when a person is forced to outwardly conform while questioning themselves it leads to a struggle between their inner selves and what is expected of them. Outward conformity often oppresses a character’s true feelings of loneliness and being misunderstood. In The Awakening by Kate Chopin, the protagonist, Edna Pontellier, leads a dissatisfactory life. She is stuck in a loveless marriage, and has children, all in an attempt to conform to the social norm of the Victorian woman. However, she inwardly questions whether or not she should try to break free from this life to find her own independence and happiness.

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Keir Nason AP English Literature and Composition Mrs. Schroeder January 3, 2018 Politics and literature are far from strange bedfellows. Social commentary and allegory have been tools in the literary toolbox since Ancient Greece, with Plato’s Allegory of The Cave being one of the earliest forms of the device. Science fiction is an entire genre that, at least to a degree, is based upon the premise of looking at the problems of today through the eyes of tomorrow. Oftentime, authors seek to tackle the issues of their time within their writing, and Kate Chopin was no different when she published her final work The Awakening in 1899. At the time of The Awakening’s release, many works strived to address the rights of women, with the Suffragette

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When a woman in the existential manner assumes sole responsibility for her life… freedom becomes something of a negative condition and she herself indeed [is] a solitary soul “ (Seyersted). Women in the 1800’s like Edna suffered from not being equal with men. Edna realizes that she will never be able to obtain the freedom she wants, but at the end of the novel, as Edna slowly drowns in the ocean, she realized what her true role was in life and faces her true self (Seyersted). As the novel progressed, Edna had been trying to reject society and its way of thinking. In the end, she learned to accept society’s ways, but she died knowing that she found her own

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“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 151). As she realized the extent of the strain her children would put on her identity, Edna determined that she would never let her children take her life while she would still live. As she reflects on this notion, swimming into the ocean, she reviews her half-hearted relationship with her husband, and all of the other men she had fancied throughout her years, realizing the absurdity of the cycle she trapped herself in. Her obsession with the sea allowed for her to be free at last.

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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.

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In the late 1800s society assigned to women a specific role to play. The role included bearing children, caring for them, and honoring their husbands. People saw women who took jobs outside of the home or who never married as deranged. Kate Chopin highlights the female duties of the time in her novel, The Awakening, through the use of foils Edna and Adele. Adele represents the model of how an ideal women of the 19th century should behave and feel.

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When Edna Pontellier of Kate Chopin’s The Awakening realized that she was not satisfied with the life that she was leading, she began to gradually break free from the societal restrictions placed upon her. She seeks freedom from her role as a wife, first distancing herself from Mr.Pontellier by engaging in relationships with other men, then distancing herself further when she purchases her own house. During her pursuit for a new life, a wave of emotions that had previously gone dormant are revived. She finds herself increasingly attached to her new life: her paintings, her pigeon house, and her love for Robert.

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In Kate Chopin 's novel The Awakening and the short story “The Story of An Hour” feminist beliefs overshadow the value in moral and societal expectations during the turn of the century. Due to Louise Mallard and Edna Pontellier Victorian life style they both see separating from their husband as the beginning of their freedom. Being free from that culture allows them to invest in their personal interest instead of being limited to what 's expected of them. Chopin 's sacrifices her own dignity for the ideal of society’s expectations. Chopin 's sad, mysterious tone seems to support how in their era, there was a significant lack of women 's rights and freedom of expression.

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919 Words | 4 Pages

Kate Chopin’s The Awakening was written at the end of the nineteenth century, where many roles for women began to change; therefore, the it appears to have been a turning point for females (“The Role of the Wife and Mother”). These changes in female roles were mostly due to the actions of women themselves, motivated by their desires to break away from the limits imposed on their gender The nineteenth century was a critical point in time for women, in regards to their roles in society (“The Role of the Wife and Mother”). In The Awakening, Edna goes through noteworthy changes in the course of the novel, which reconstructs her into a woman who goes against societal ideals regarding motherhood and marriage . In the 1890s, motherhood was viewed

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Growing up as a woman has been quite difficult in this generation, however, growing up around thirty years ago must have been more difficult. Back in the 1900’s, women had different social norms to deal with in society. Women had to stay at home, be housewives, do the laundry, and cook while men went out and worked to obtain money for their family. In Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin, she tells the struggles that women went through back in the 1990 's and the social norms that women had to go through. Chopin addresses many instances of symbolism to portray the feeling Mrs. Mallard has about her own thoughts and experiences with or without a man in her life.

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Within the novel, The Awakening by Kate Chopin, Madame Ratignolle’s character possesses traits that emphasize, by contrast the characteristics and behavior of Edna Pontellier. Despite being close friends within the novel, Adele and Edna have contrasting views and behaviors that illuminate the theme of female freedom and the tradition of female submission and male domination. Madame Ratignolle and Edna Pontellier are close friends, but their views toward raising children differ fundamentally. Madame Ratignolle would sacrifice her identity to devote herself entirely to her children, household, and husband, whereas Edna would not. Besides their views towards raising children, how they raise their children also differs.

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