As a child care worker I know firsthand what it is to take care of a child and how children react to certain situations; whether it is a pleasurable response or an unfavorable response. Many of the negative reactions result in crying or throwing temper tantrums. However, for a child to learn and grow they sometimes challenge authority by acting defiant and out of control. Consequently, the child becomes aware of his or her surroundings and decides how to behave in the world they live in. Likewise, in The Awakening by Kate Chopin, the Nineteenth Century societal norms affected Edna to act stubborn and childish through her defiance and tantrums towards the pressures of womanhood pressed upon by cultural tradition.
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.
Abby Kidder Mrs. Schroder Advanced Placement Literature and Composition 3 January 2018 Mrs. Pontellier’s Internal Discoveries Kate Chopin’s The Awakening epitomizes the type of a novel where the main character uncovers his or her true identity and person. Mrs. Pontellier, the main character, risks her well-being, livelihood, and life to find her purpose. She breaks barriers and societal standards in order to attain her desired self. The reader engages with the work alongside Edna as she travels on the path of self discovery.
In The Awakening by Kate Chopin, she uses attitudes towards motherhood to convey a contrast in Madame Ratignolle and Edna Pontellier’s mothering techniques. In this book, Chopin describes that women are only useful for marriage, having kids, cooking, cleaning, and other sexist roles. A perfect woman was seen as someone who “worships” their husbands and caters to all. The women’s main goals in life would to be married and have children, and if this did not happen they were seen in society as nothing and that they did not reach their expectation as women. Edna’s rebel towards these expectations allow her to live the life she wants and to find herself.
Individuals all around the world today face obstacles that challenge their strength and integrity. Someone’s ability to persevere through obstacles ultimately builds their moral character. Moreover, an individual’s capability to turn themselves into the person they have always desired to be can be life-changing. Human beings can discover who they genuinely are in a variety of ways. In Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, the main character Edna Pontellier awakens in life with bravery and a sense of exploration, which, in due course, alters her perspective on life and grants her independence.
The American South has a unique, complicated soul, portrayed as a society that clings to a diluted and romanticized history of itself, coping through perseverance. This desperation to achieve an ideal, forgotten period, despite natural progress not slowing down makes the portrayal of social systems both majestic and gruesome simultaneously. This concept of resisting change in favor for this southern fantasy can be applied to almost any sociological area; but this willful ignorance is distinctly seen applied to gender throughout 19th and 20th century literature. For a Southern Woman, one of the highest social sins is to be subversive towards her gender role; an even higher sin if this woman is a mother. Those that dare to violate their positions in life, often end up cold and barren, drawing a parallel to the post-war American South, as shown through the works of Kate
In the 1800’s, the societal niche of married women was clearly defined: they were meant to devote every aspect of their lives to their husbands and children. Edna Pontellier, the protagonist in Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, struggles to adhere to these standards, and eventually rebels against them. The harsh standards placed on Edna and other women in the novel are like the cages around the metaphorical birds Chopin uses to represent them. Edna's unhappiness in her societal role is realized in the ocean, which symbolizes this awakening and her attempt to escape the gender roles of the nineteenth century.
The Awakening is a novel written by Kate Chopin that follows a woman named Edna Pontellier on her journey to self-awareness. Edna lived a comfortable lifestyle with her husband and two children in Louisiana during the 19th century. Despite obtaining all aspects to a perfect life, Edna became dissatisfied after meeting Robert Lebrun in Grand Isle. Robert sparked a desire for unlawful lust as well as a yearning for independence in a society full of conformed standards. Edna was unable to handle the pressures associated with achieving personal freedom which ultimately led to her death.
The Awakening, by Kate Chopin, fits into a feminist lens as the text is greatly affected by the way the characters from the book are expected to act. Each character’s role correlates with their gender, and how a person of their gender is supposed to behave during the late 1800s. Women were treated unequal to men, and because of this, husbands were very oppressive to their wives as evidenced by the way Leonce treats Edna. The characters in this book are expected to submit and act according to their gender roles; in other words, males being dominant and females being subordinate. In the beginning of the text, this is the way Edna behaves; however, she transforms throughout the book and becomes a very different person as she breaks away from society’s
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.
In Kate Chopin 's "The Awakening," the mentality of the feminist woman was depicted obviously as she composed, "How abnormal and terrible it appeared to stand exposed under the sky! How delightful! She felt like some new-conceived animal, opening its eyes in a commonplace world that it had never known" (Chopin 627). This quote depicts a radical change from the earliest starting point of the novel when Edna existed in a semi-cognizant state while wedded to Leonce and having kids; however around then she didn 't know about her own aspirations and sentiments. The encounters Edna had and all the people she met on Grand Isle stirred wishes for opportunity, sexual fulfillment, music, and
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.
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
In Kate Chopin’s “The Awakening” shows a controversial protagonist, Edna Pontellier. The character in the novel showed different expectations for women and their supposed roles. One literary critic, Megan Kaplon showed how this novel can be viewed as a struggle of the world or society around her. Edna in the story is trying to find freedom and individuality Kaplon mentions that “one of her most shocking actions was her denial of her role as a mother and wife.”
Kate Chopin’s The Awakening is a piece of fiction written in the nineteenth century. The protagonist Edna is a controversial character, Edna rebels against many nineteenth - century traditions, but her close friend Adele was a perfect example in terms of a role of a woman, mother and wife at that time. Chopin uses contrast characters to highlight the difference between Adele and Edna. Although they are both married women in the nineteenth century, they also exhibit many different views about what a mother role should be.
