Out Of House In The Awakening

Out of House and In to Nature Grand Isle, an island off the Louisianan cost, was a boundary between human establishment and untouched nature in the late nineteenth-century. Initially a stronghold of Lafitte's pirate, the island was later taken by Creole people as an aristocratic resort. Consequently, Grade Isle is presented as a binary world in Kate Chopin's The Awakening. The civilized community inside the house is completely controlled by the rules of the patriarchal society, while the environment outside the house is still a world of unrestrained nature. The island thus acts both as a bastion of social order and a sanctuary for social rebels. By setting the novel between the artificial and natural realms on Grand Isle, Kate Chopin places

For the last six years in her life, Edna has been married to Léonce Pontillier. The marriage relationship, from an outsider's perspective, is a perfect one due to the prestigious economic status of her husband. Influenced by this social opinion, Edna has also been "forced to admit that she knew of none better [relationship]" (9). Nevertheless, the awakening thought has always lain dormant in Edna's inner self, waiting for an opportune setting to be awakened. As evinced by the Edna's characterization when returning to the cottage, she shows "some appearance of fatigue upon the upper step of the porch" (4). This outer image of weariness is interpreted as a reflection of Edna's tiredness for the house dominated by her husband. As the novel progresses, the restrictive nature of the house becomes increasing unbearable, which eventually leads to Edna's exit of the house into the unrestricted natural

Just like how Edna is compelled by both the alluring force of nature and the restrictive force of the house, her contemporary women striving for independent gender identity confronted the conflicts between their own desire for independence and the opposition from the masculine hegemony. Therefore, Edna's gradual progression away from her house is construed as her determination to terminate the physical and emotional reliance on her husband in exchange for an independent character. As described in chapter eleven, Edna's insistence to stay outside of the house in spite of her husband command is a form of implicit protest against her husband's dominance (31). Nevertheless, when "the old owl no longer hooted, and the water-oaks had ceased to moan as they bent their heads" (31), Edna is also encompassed by a form of drowsiness that drives her back to the comfort of household. Based on these observations, it can be generalized that the relative power of natural force and artificial force is an indicator of Edna's "wakefulness from the social construction." By shifting the novel's setting between nature and house, Chopin implies that Edna's awakening process is an arduous detour rather than a linear progression. This alternation of settings, viewed in the context of composition, accurately reflects the fluctuations in feminine power amid the social upheavals