Dialectal Journal; The Awakening (Kate Chopin) Motif- The Sea Quote Literary/Style Elements Commentary Additional Ideas “There was no sound abroad except the hooting of an old owl in the top of a water-oak, and the everlasting voice of the sea, that was not uplifted at that soft hour.” (7) Personification Chopin’s use of personification demonstrates how the sea provides a feeling of comfort. The soft hour helps to communicate the feeling of comfort as Chopin tries to show how the setting of the sea is calming.
As the mother of a family Edna is expected to live out her role as a caretaker of others. However, interactions with a different culture, her confidant (Mademoiselle Reisz), and the freedom of the sea cause Edna to see her expectations differently. This new form of thought induced by her surroundings provokes Edna to take action to transform her reality. Courageously, Edna refuses her responsibilities, in search of her own self-interest. A life confined to others is not the life of an artist.
Edna fully understands that society would brand her as a terrible woman, but she does not view herself as a bad person. There is an external and internal difference that Edna hopes to one day reconcile. Chopin, instead of creating tension within Edna, created tension within the society and Edna with her newfound independence does not mind how society classifies her. Decisively, it can be concluded that the tension between outward conformity and inward questioning builds the meaning of the novel by examining Edna’s role as a wife, mother, and as nontraditional woman in the traditional Victorian period.
Her ability to swim starts in chapter 10, and ironically Edna’s happiness then eventually leads to her bismal ending in chapter 39. Another interesting example is Edna’s relationships with Arobin and Robert, where Edna chooses to act rebellious and choose her own terms for two affair-like relationships. Either case, Edna felt “as if a mist had been lifted from her eyes, enabling her to took upon and comprehend the significance of life, that monster made up of beauty and brutality” (Chopin 84). Her relationships tore her emotions apart, but in the process angered and falsely strengthened her; this is an example of the “masking” of her characteristics. In reality, Robert and Arobin
In Kate Chopin’s “The Awakening”, the main character, Edna Pontellier, becomes awakened to herself, her need for nonconformity, and her strength through water and the sea. The water and sea serves a multitude of everyday purposes such as swimming, bathing, and drinking. However, Edna’s experiences with water are extremely symbolic, “awakening” her as a woman(48). In her first experience of swimming- in which she had “attempted all summer to learn”-she grew “overconfident” and “wanted to swim far out, where no woman had swum before” (47).
Edna experiences the hardships of striving to break as a “ [feeling] like one who awakens gradually out of a dream, a delicious, grotesque, impossible dream, to feel again the realities pressing into her soul … the exuberance which had sustained and exalted her spirit left her helpless and yielding to the conditions which crowded her in … clutching feebly at the post before passing into the house.” (79). Through the imagery of a weight on her mind and feeble body, Chopin conveys her inability to find the strength to break the chains of the archetypal female identity. Extremely fleeting, her momentary empowerment clearly validates her circular growth rather than a building of personal development.
While Edna's demise somewhat dishonors the message of the novel, the actions she make to acquire her individuality flawlessly illustrate what The Awakening conveys. Chopin enables Edna to flutter well beyond the limitations of conventional traditions even though societal restrictions tell her to behave otherwise. Edna discovers through her knowledge as an independent woman that she does not have to rely on males to be free. By escaping from her caged life, Edna no longer feels shackled to society. She can finally regulate her life and decide her destiny as a liberated
The other reason makes Edna realize her own self is swimming, as if a release to her. Refer to what she said in the novel, to beyond other women, it can express that her aspiration on being alternative and get rid of the constraint from the society. Also that is the first body contact with Robert, she find herself in the ocean, and there is the place she longing, also aware of the freedom. Robert, is a boy she falls in love with, yet she aware of that, if she marries to Robert, her future just same as now, she will lose her freedom.
Adele has her sewing and Madame Reisz has her piano playing. One day, Edna agrees to go swimming with Robert. This experience awakens something inside her. She realizes swimming in the sea is some kind of escape for her. She can forget about all her responsibilities as a wife and a mother for a little while and just focus on herself.
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
A boat no bigger than a bathtub; the danger and uncertainty of a powerful, unrelenting sea; and four men who have nothing but each other to rely on in their quest for survival. This sounds like the plot of a thrilling, dramatic tale – and it is – but Stephen Crane’s “The Open Boat” is more than that: it is a retelling of Crane’s own brush with death and a stark consideration of the meaning of life. Stephen Crane was the youngest of fourteen children born to Johnathan and Mary Helen Crane. His life – although typical of the time – is marked by loss: his father died in 1880 when Stephen was only nine years old, and seven of his siblings had died by 1892. Stephen came close to death himself, while reporting on the Cuban Revolution in 1897, the
This passage is where Edna’s “awakening” begins in the text as she starts to go against the role of an obedient housewife. She realizes that she does not want to be a meek woman who obeys her husband without question and in light of this change, she starts to cry. Chopin uses similes to capture how empty Edna feels inside due to how her husband treats her. She feels trapped not only by her husband, but by society as Chopin shows that it is her “Fate.” Chopin's attention to water in the background of this scene is meant to be a symbol which shows how Edna strives to be a free like the ocean instead of being hidden by
In the story, the only place where Edna could experience freedom and find her awakening was the sea. Thus, when she commits suicide one can see how the sea was the root for Edna finding her self-discovery. Through suicide individuals can see how it was the only escape for a woman who was living under oppression. Suicide not only shows that oppression was impossible to escape for a woman, but at the the same time it shows that suicide was the only way
Tone: The tone of this poem seems to be a person who enjoyed listening to the sound of the calm sea at night. As he is standing by the window , he is seeing the tide getting fuller by the moment. The fact that he mentions the moon out at night makes the scenery even more beautiful. He says, listen !
Before Edna’s death Chopin describes the swirl of the waves as serpents, which strictly emphasises an evil and possibly death. Chopin writes, “The foamy wavelets curled up to her white feet, and coiled like serpents about her ankles”(120). Snakes are often responsible for the death of
