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The Awakening In The 1850's

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The role of a woman in society has always fit into a perfect box. Women were expected to be the dutiful wife, loving mother and housekeeper for her family. Betty Friedan wrote The Feminine Mystique, in 1963 hoping to unveil the truth behind women’s thoughts about their role in society. Friedan exposed that things were not always, as they seemed for the average mother and homemaker in the 1950s and 1960s. Kate Chopin wrote The Awakening in the 1850’s which told the story of Edna Pontillier and her struggles as a housewife and finding her true identity. These two literary works captured how women really felt about their everyday lives. They displayed that women were often unhappy and felt unfulfilled regardless that they were living the lifestyle …show more content…

While she took pleasure in raising her children, caring for her home, and loving her spouse, there was something missing. She found that women had, “a sense of dissatisfaction” (Friedan 57) with the tasks of everyday life. The main character Edna in The Awakening by Kate Chopin displays similar dissatisfaction regardless of the love she has for her husband and children. She finds herself crying for no reason during the story. Edna explains, “Such experiences as the foregoing were not uncommon in her married life.” (Chopin 18) This scene shows how Edna feels inner turmoil towards her marriage, but she is unsure of what is causing her feelings. Both Friedan and Chopin illustrate how having the perfect life on the outside did not truly show what women were feeling …show more content…

Women were taught that the greatest success was gaining a husband and bearing children. Eventually, running a household and raising children would provide the ultimate trophy of life. However, after women succeeded in this, they still felt unworthy or they would say, “I feel as if I don’t exist.” (Friedan 64) Edna also struggles with the realization that her life has not given her the fulfillment that she expected. Her role as a wife and mother leaves her feeling invisible and desiring something more. In Chapter 25 of The Awakening, we see Edna thinking “It was not despair, but it seemed to her as if life were passing by, leaving its promises broken and unfulfilled. Yet there were other days when she listened, was led on and deceived by fresh promises which her youth had held out to her.” (Chopin 103) The common theme of women feeling insignificant regardless of having it all can be seen in both the Feminine Mystique and the

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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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She composed a novel that urged women across the country to search for opportunities and discover their individual beliefs as endure everyday life. Throughout the novel, Friedan entwines work and identity by utilizing the methods of

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“If you love something you must set it free, and if it returns then it was meant to be”. This quote is fewer or more words demonstrates the beauty in releasing something for the greater good, which is exactly what took place in the story “The Awakening”. In the story “The Awakening” by Kate Chopin the author uses symbols and motifs through her main character, Edna, to illuminate her feelings and define her actions. In “The Awakening” the author uses her main character Edna to illuminate independence and coming to her personal realization or “an awakening”, through the use of motifs.

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Communities of Consensus Research Report The Great Awakening during the Colonial time is an example of Communities of Consensus. During the late 1760s the Puritans and Anglicans represented 40% of the nation 's religion. Ministers tried to promote a single “identity” but were unable to due to the restriction of religious freedom. As evangelists went town after town they found bigger chapels and a huge number of Protestant categories grew.

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Edna does not partake in her civil duties as a woman. It is assumed that a mother would do anything her children, but she refuses. When talking with a friend, Edna admits that she “would give [her] life for [her] children, but [she] wouldn't give [herself],” (Chopin 64). Although Edna would sacrifice her physical self for her children, she would not give up her morals or self-respect. Edna portrays childish characteristics when she partakes in an illicit relationship, despite being married.

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Her frequent vacations to the island, like her frequent dips into the ocean, begin to spark a personal change within the woman. A Creole man, Robert, shows Edna a new dimension of feelings she never knew she lived without, and she begins to look through life through a new lens. Having been awakened for the first time, she sees injustice and mistreatment where she saw none before. Chopin uses Edna’s new observations and reactions to the culture around her to illustrate the myriad ways women were marginalized. In an ironic twist, the white woman from Kentucky proves to be more liberated than her more traditional husband, who grew up

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1252 Words | 6 Pages

In the novel The Awakening by Kate Chopin, the main character, Edna faces many challenges that she has to overcome. While trying to overcome them, she makes decisions that not only effect her life, but the lives of others. Edna Pontellier is a woman that grew up in the late 1800s who tries to break away from the normal gender roles of this time period. She does this by separating herself from her home, husband, children and by acknowledging her sexual desires. A lot of people do not agree with Edna's actions because they feel as if she is abandoning her children and ignoring her responsibilities.

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She is freeing herself from her past life and starting anew by act of independence. They also argue that she breaks off or ends many relationships because she is becoming more independant. Whether or not Chopin wanted people to analyze these like these or not I still believe that Edna’s final act is one of hopelessness and despair.

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As a woman learning to be herself in a patriarchy and a culture in which she could not express herself “Edna looked straight before her...felt no interest...part and parcel of an alien world” (Chopin 60). Edna is separated from society, seeming to have given up on finding herself within a society that she is now opposed to. She has lost hope in society, feeling as if she was in another world that had become evil and against her. In The Awakening Kate Chopin develops a theme of how Edna is struggling to find s self identity, while stuck in a patriarchal society. Edna begins to learn about new aspects of herself and figure herself out.

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Edna’s life is less rough than the women because Kate Chopin the author of the Awakening plays with the connection of reality vs. appearance. This connection highlights the situation of people as she puts on a mask to fit the social expectations. In the novel we can see, Edna lives in a life with two different personalities. We can see this at the beginning of the book in chapter 7, “even as a child she had lived her own small life all within herself. At a very early

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Chopin uses the words of, “relieving herself obligations”, to show how Edna’s responsibilities have been conquered. With these responsibilities gone, she is able to be an individual

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As Chopin states in The Awakening “ I would give up the unessential: I would give up my money, I would give up my life for my children: but I wouldn't give myself.” In this quote Edna explains that she would give up anything for her children but the only thing she won't give up for them is herself, in other words she won't change or be someone else to please or satisfy her children. So basically in the book The Awakening Chopin is trying to show or explain to everyone that women shouldn't have to act the way society expects them to act because not all women can be the perfect house wife. This all is proven in the way Chopin represents Edna because every single symbol that is shown all adds up to make Ednas life and beliefs because some women may feel like a caged bird in their marriages. They might also feel like they aren't the best for being mothers or having to raise a child to begin but they might do it simply out of guilt or pity for the

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1154 Words | 5 Pages

The Awakening, a novel written by Kate Chopin, is a novel that can be considered out of the ordinary due to the ambiguous ending concerning the main character committing suicide. Edna is a married woman who feels constrained by the image that society places on women. Throughout the novel she encounters other characters who inspire her to break through society’s restrictions and become more free and independent. After her and Mr. Pontellier move back to their home in New Orleans, her former flame, Robert, moves away to Mexico. Soon after, Edna moves out of her house while her husband is away on business, taking greater steps to becoming a self-determining woman.

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A woman with an independent nature can be described as rebellious, passionate, and courageous. In Kate Chopin’s novel, The Awakening, the reader is introduced to Edna Pontellier, a female who epitomizes the qualities of a woman with such an independent nature. Living in a “patriarchal society” that expects women to be nothing more than devoted wives and nurturing mothers, Edna attempts to seek out her true identity as it becomes apparent how unsettled she feels about her life. Throughout The Awakening, Edna Pontellier, dissatisfied with her duties as a mother and wife, decides to pursue her own interests and express her true identity, resulting in an awakening and her finding the courage to make the changes she deems as necessary. Edna Pontellier had two young boys, Etienne and Raoul, who were ages four and five, respectively.

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The Reality of Edna’s Awakening Kate Chopin’s The Awakening was a dramatic novella that was based on society and how Edna was treated, love and independence of finding her true self. The author inputs the theme in a numerous amount of literary devices that include round character, irony and a metaphor to exaggerate the theme. This shows how Edna has two sides to herself; the one that tries to fit into society and another side that the public can see as a swell mother.

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