Societal Standards In Kate Chopin's The Awakening

In the 19th century, women’s lives were molded by societal standards, which restricted their actions to the likings of others. There was a way to be a woman and anything opposing that way was considered shameful and rebellious. Women were to marry and bear children, take care of their families and households, have perfect manners and adequate social skills, and this is about all that women’s lives amounted to during this period. Many women wanted more for themselves and sought to become free of the standards. In the novel The Awakening author Kate Chopin uses different characters' relationships, dialogue, and metaphors to convey the complex, indecisive emotions of Edna Pontellier, as she fights the social standards for women and becomes her

She knew that society would never let her and Robert be together, so she tried to bury her feelings for Robert after he left and break free the societal standards in other ways. Edna Pontellier was not a typical woman of society who submitted to the way of life like everyone else did. She “was not a mother-women” (9) because she wasn’t one of those women “who idolized their children, worshiped their husbands, and … grow wings as ministering angels” (9). She loved her children, but not in the way that women were supposed to love them, she “was fond of her children in an uneven, impulsive way” (22). She “would sometimes gather them passionately to her heart” (22) like all the other mothers, but “she would sometimes forget them” (22). She was fond of her husband, but she did not worship him like the other wives did, and she took care of her family, but she didn’t believe she was the savior of her household or that it was her duty to do everything perfect for her husband and kids. Edna was slowly “beginning to realize her position in the universe as a human being” (16) and that her purpose was different from that of all the other women in society. She had been taught her whole life to “harbor thoughts and emotions which never voiced themselves” (60) but she believed that those thoughts and emotions “belonged to her and were her own” (60) and “that she had a right to them” (60). With this in mind, Edna began taking charge and making changes in her life so that she could become more independent and take her actions into her own hands. Before Robert came home from Mexico, Edna found a short relationship with a man named Alcée Arobin, because she wanted to have the freedom to pursue feelings for a man when there was something between them, instead of submitting to her marriage that had no love. She decided to tell