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Instinct Versus Conventionality Analysis

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Recommended: The effect of gender on identity

Vladimír Nepraš (UČO: 13571)
Mgr. Robert Švábenský
Twentieth-Century US literature
20th October 2015

Instinct Versus Conventionality
If Edna Pontellier met Daisy Miller they would probably understand each other. They would find out they have a lot in common and a lot to discuss. They might help one another. They may find themselves kindred spirits. Daisy, a main character of James´s Daisy Miller, and Edna, a protagonist of Chopin´s The Awakening, would like to live independently in society that is bound by conventions. They want to live their lives freely and self-sufficiently. They want to be their own masters. However, they are women and they are expected to play the roles that society has placed on them. Male counterparts of both women, …show more content…

To be a good wife in Edna’s society meant being a ”mother-woman“. James describes these women as ”...women who idolized their children, worshipped their husbands, and esteemed it a holy privilege to efface themselves as individuals and grow wings as ministering angels.“ (Chopin, chapter 4) Typical example is Adele Ratignolle, Edna's best friend, who devotes herself solely to her husband and children seeking nothing for herself. Edna starts to be dissatisfied with this and begins awakening from her semi-conscious state of a devoted wife and a mother and breaking free from her limited, conservative lifestyle. She begins to see the world around her with a fresh perspective and discovers her own identity. Her “awakening” is launched by recalling her infatuations when she was younger. Her first swim in a lake shows her necessity of depending on herself only. Her falling in love with Robert Lebrun awakens passion and sexuality in her. She continually ceases activities she is expected to do. She cancels regular Tuesday dinner parties. She spends less time with her children. She more or less stops looking after the household. She starts her own career as a painter. She does not obey …show more content…

You do outline the conflict with social conventions in both texts, but hardly get to discussing the role of INSTINCT. Additionally, you provide very limited textual support in the paragraph about The Awakening Apart form stating the obvious, the conclusion hardly presents any insight. I am also concerned about the fact that plagiarism check online gives me links to essays of remarkable similarity in title as well as argument.
In your next RP, please, try to be more coherentin pursuing your argument and supporting it with textual referencing.
76/C

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:
Is Edna's suicide her failure? How would you interpret her final act?
What is the symbolic meaning of Edna’s first successful attempt to swim?
Is it possible to discover from the text of Daisy Miller what kind of person Daisy really

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