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Oppression In Kate Chopin's The Awakening

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Each of the protagonists meet an end due to their respective obsessions, which offer death and total mental disassemblement, both of which effectively destroy the character that receives them. Edna died reflecting on life and the struggles that would forever haunt her if she had chosen not to end her life. As she was swimming farther into the sea, “Edna heard her father’s voice and her sister Margaret’s. She heard the barking of an old dog that was chained to the sycamore tree. ” (Chopin 153). Edna chose to end her life because of what she saw for herself in the future: an endless, futile struggle against the patriarchy and her family duties. She reflected on her bittersweet relationships, which allowed for her to clarify her reasons for dying and ensure she was …show more content…

“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. The narrator trapped in the yellow room was in no mental state to reflect, however. Nearing the end of the story, her mind has deteriorated to the level of incomprehension, preventing her from properly assessing her situation. “I don’t like to LOOK out of the windows even – there are so many of those creeping women, and they creep so fast. I wonder if they all come of of that wall-paper as I did?”

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As Edna is walking into the sea, Kate Chopin expands on the setting and states, “The water was chill, but she walked on. The water was deep, but she lifted her white body and reached out with a long sweeping stroke” (176). The emphasis is placed on the water, explaining how it affected Edna. Kate Chopin utilizes anaphora to accentuate the choices Edna makes and how it defines the meaning of becoming aware and conscious of one’s self wellbeing over others. Furthermore, Kate Chopin continues with, “She went on and on.

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1207 Words | 5 Pages

However, Edna’s excitement concerning the ocean soon turns to dread, beginning with when she experiences “ a certain ungovernable dread” and “a quick vision of death” while swimming, leaving her paralyzed in fear for a moment (Chopin 47- 48). Ultimately, Edna returns to the sea one final time at the end of the novel, overcome with a sense of despair as a result of her societal duress. Again, Chopin writes: “The touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace” (Chopin 189). Though the description is the exact same, the connotation of the sea from Edna’s perspective has completely shifted. Specifically, the sea represents an end to the despair that has plagued Edna throughout the novel.

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396 Words | 2 Pages

The Awakening Promt #5 I think that Edna’s suicide was due more to her failure to escape from what she was supposed to do as a mother and a housewife, especially when she lost Robert, than giving up and giving herself to the sea. There were many times where she has neglected to be a good mother to her children and a good housewife. Just as in chapter three page 5, she doesn’t even notice or seem to care that her child has a fever. In chapter seven page 18, she would sometimes forget her children and she even felt their absence as a relief.

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825 Words | 4 Pages

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.

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603 Words | 3 Pages

In addition, the search for self-identity is viewed as important in today’s society. Thus, these confliction attributes lead the reader to identify Edna as morally ambiguous. Categorizing complex characters as purely good or purely evil is not one of the easiest of tasks. As a result, it is best to characterize them as morally ambiguous. In Edna’s case, she is morally ambiguous due to her romantic affiliations and role-defying actions, but both are immensely vital to Kate Chopin’s “The Awakening” as a complete whole.

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467 Words | 2 Pages

Some of Edna’s most obvious decisions immediately question her weakness to handle pressure. Edna’s inability to show compassion and care for her children challenge this normalcy for a mother of the time period; Edna considered her children “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” (Chopin 115). The children almost seemed like a burden, or a detriment to her. Edna’s doctor visit nearly foreshadows this mindset, where the doctor notes that

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844 Words | 4 Pages

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.

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1386 Words | 6 Pages

Adele is a “mother-woman” entirely, concentrates on domesticity, cares and praises her husband and child, and interested in everything related to her family, any individual ideality is not a public intention. Once a time, Adele is playing the piano in front of the guests who came to her party. Edna just realized that what Adele plays cannot touch her deeply, but just a performance without soul, in order to her children and seems as the ability that a housewife should possess, to please the guests and show the cleaver and wise. In the deep of Edna, to being a full-time home worker is not her will and not the individual ideals she seeking for. When Edna and Adele with their families went to Grand Isle, sometimes, Edna will put herself into their children completely or forget them.

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789 Words | 4 Pages

Professor Abassi wrote in “The Masculine Sea and the Impossibility of Awakening in Chopin's The Awakening” that contrary to popular belief the sea represents male society and not freedom. However when she says that “I would give my life to my children, but I wouldn't give myself.” (64) makes me believe the sea is not representing men as she would rather die than give up who she is. If Edna was not willing to give up who she was for her children I don't think she would have given up who she is because of defeat but rather because she would rather not live as who she is than continue living as someone she doesn't know. By killing herself in the water I don't think she achieved liberation from her struggles, dying for her was just a last option.

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1283 Words | 6 Pages

After swimming successfully, she develops feelings for Robert. After this awakening, Edna starts to step back and rethink her entire life; her marriage, her role, and even herself. She realizes she feels sort of imprisoned in this life she has had for so long. Edna finally starts doing things for her, she is letting herself feel an attraction for another man even though she is married and she also gets into art and has everyone in the house model for her. Rather than doing things to get the house ready for her husband or spending time playing with her children, she is distracted by all her newly found

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160 Words | 1 Pages

While seemingly calm and beautiful, the ocean possesses danger that could entice one into pursuing a false utopian state of being. Edna’s inability to distinguish the danger and the beauty of the ocean ultimately leads her behave irrationally and chooses to end her life in the end. The idea of pursuing one’s goal through rationale mean is not only significant within the novel but also relevant to our daily lives. In real life, people sometimes feel discontented with their social status and economic condition. While some people are motivated to take concrete action to improve their living conditions, some make unrealistic goals and seek to find an immediate way to success.

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925 Words | 4 Pages

As Edna becomes more comfortable in the water, she also becomes more in touch with her own emotions. One particular night, Edna is able to swim farther into the ocean than she ever had before - the same night when she realizes her own distaste with her marriage and her role in society. Chopin writes that while Edna was in the water, “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 (Chopin 27)”. This

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1122 Words | 5 Pages

Throughout the generation, women have always been trapped in some way or another. In the short story, ‘The Yellow Wall-Paper’ and the novel ‘The Awakening’ highlights the struggle of women in the late 1800’s and the early 1900s in society. The Yellow wallpaper is a short story about women giving birth and being imprisoned in a room with a weird view of the yellow wall-paper. This resulted in her hallucination lead to the development of mental illness. By the end of the story, she rips off the yellow wallpaper and kills her husband.

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1315 Words | 6 Pages

In the story, the only place where Edna could experience freedom and find her awakening was the sea. Thus, when she commits suicide one can see how the sea was the root for Edna finding her self-discovery. Through suicide individuals can see how it was the only escape for a woman who was living under oppression. Suicide not only shows that oppression was impossible to escape for a woman, but at the the same time it shows that suicide was the only way

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837 Words | 4 Pages

A struggle for an escape was what Chopin wanted when she was incorporating Romantic traits in her novel. One way Chopin does this is by using elements of the supernatural to show how the personified sea seduced Edna. Her connection to the sea grows when Robert begins to talk about how “the moon is shining – the moon must be shining- a spirit that has haunted these shores up from the Gulf” (Chopin 39). The spirit is calling Edna to the water because that is where she can be alone and happy. After from their trip to the sea, Edna allows outside forces, such as the weather, to influence her and the book’s mood in dark and violent ways.

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