The Controversial Views in Kate Chopin's The Awakening
Kate Chopin's The Awakening is truly a novel that stands out from the rest. From the moment it was published, it has been caused women to examine their beliefs. The fact that The Awakening was shunned when first published, yet now taught in classrooms across the country is proof that The Awakening is full of rebellious and controversial ideas.
One of the main themes explored in The Awakening is that of a woman's place in society. In that time period, a woman was considered in some ways to be property of a man (Mahin 2). This is shown repeatedly in The Awakening, through the many relationships between the characters. As with many ideas throughout the book, this is depicted well through the contrast between Edna's marriage and Madame Ratignolle's (Klein 4). While Madame Ratignolle is happy to do whatever her husband wishes, Edna will not indulge her husband at all, at one point even telling him "Don't speak to me like that again; I shall not answer you" (Chopin 80). Edna also had extremely rebellious views on her family life, thinking of her children as passing pleasures rather than the sole purpose of her existence (Klein 4). She even states to Madame Ratignolle "I would give up the unessential [for her children];... but I wouldn't give myself" (Chopin 97). These were definitely not the usual thoughts of a woman in that era, which is reflected through her husband's opinion. "It seems to me the utmost folly for a woman at the head of a household, and the mother of children, to spend in an atelier days which would be better employed contriving for the comfort of her family" (Chopin 108). Although women were supposed to automatically be good mothers ...
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...o wonder that it was banned when first published and, conversely, it is no surprise that it is praised today. The Awakening allows the reader a glimpse at a different way of life, a way of life that definitely rebels from the normal standards of society.
Works Cited and Consulted
Chopin, Kate. The Awakening and Selected Short Stories of Kate Chopin. New York: Penguin Books, 1976.
Klein, Sarah. "Kate Chopin's Ecofeminism: A Dialogue Between The Awakening & Contemporary Women."
Address. South Central Women's Studies Association Conference. Newcomb College. New Orleans, LA:, 1999.
Mahin, Michael James The Awakening and The Yellow Wallpaper: An Intertextual Comparison of the "Conventional" Connotations of Marriage and Propriety
Simons, Karen. "Kate Chopin on the Nature of Things." Mississippi Quarterly: The Journal of Southern Culture 51.2 (1998): 2
New Essays on The Awakening. Ed. Wendy Martin. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1988.
Chopin, Kate. "The Awakening." The Norton Anthology of American Literature.. Gen. ed. Nina Baym. 8th ed. Vol. C. New York: Norton, 2012. 561-652. Print.
Kate Chopin’s The Awakening takes place in the late 19th century, in Grande Isle off the coast of Louisiana. The author writes about the main character, Edna Pontellier, to express her empowering quality of life. Edna is a working housewife,and yearns for social freedom. On a quest of self discovery, Edna meets Madame Ratignolle and Mademoiselle Reisz, falls in and out of love,and eventually ends up taking her own life. Kate Chopin’s The Awakening shows how the main character Edna Pontellier has been trapped for so many years and has no freedom, yet Edna finally “awakens” after so long to her own power and her ability to be free.
Kate Chopin's novella, The Awakening. In Kate Chopin's novella, The Awakening, the reader is introduced into. a society that is strictly male-dominated where women fill in the stereotypical role of watching the children, cooking, cleaning and keeping up with appearances. Writers often highlight the values of a certain society by introducing a character who is alienated from their culture by a trait such as gender, race, or creed.
Harris, Sharon M. "Kate Chopin." Magill’S Survey Of American Literature, Revised Edition (2006): 1-5. Literary Reference Center Plus. Web. 19 Apr. 2014.
In The Awakening, Kate Chopin tells a story during the upbringing of the feminist movement, the movement was masked by the social attitudes entering into the 1900’s. She tells this story in the form of a novel, in which is told in a third person view, that is very sympathetic for Edna Pontellier, the protagonist. This is a review of the journey Edna takes in her awakening and evaluate the effectiveness this novel takes in introducing, continuing, and ending Edna’s awakening.
Wyatt, Neal "Biography of Kate Chopin" English 384: Women Writers. Ed. Ann M. Woodlief Copyright: 1998, Virginia Commonwealth University. (26 Jan. 1999) http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/eng384/katebio.htm
Petry, Alice Hall. “Critical Essays on KATE CHOPIN”. G. K. Hall & Co., New York, 1996.
Chopin, Kate. The Awakening. A Norton Critical Edition: Kate Chopin: The Awakening. Ed. Margo Culley. 2nd ed. New York: W.W. Norton, 1994. 3-109.
Boren, Lynda S., and Sara DeSaussure Davis, eds. Kate Chopin Reconsidered: Beyond the Bayou. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 1999. Print.
Davis, Sara de Saussure. "Kate Chopin." Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vol. 12 pp. 59-71. Literature Resource Center. Gale Group Databases. Central Lib. Fort Worth, TX. 11 Feb. 2003
In the novella The Awakening by Kate Chopin, the main character Edna Pontellier “becomes profoundly alienated from traditional roles required by family, country, church, or other social institutions and is unable to reconcile the desire for connection with others with the need for self-expression” (Bogard). The novella takes place in the South during the 1800’s when societal views and appearances meant everything. There were numerous rules and expectations that must be upheld by both men and women, and for independent, stubborn, and curious women such as Edna, this made life challenging. Edna expressed thoughts and goals far beyond her time that made her question her role in life and struggle to identify herself, which caused her to break societal conventions, damage her relationships, and ultimately lose everything.
Chopin, Kate. Complete Novels and Stories. Ed. Sandra M. Gilbert. New York: Library of America, 2002. Print.
In it they find a forerunner of Liberation. Though The Awakening has a similar path with Madame Bovary of Flaubert, it doesn’t share a lot with that amazing precursor. Emma Bovary awakens tragically and belatedly indeed, but Edna only goes from one reverie mode to another, until she frowns in the sea, which represents to her mother and the night, the inmost self and death. Edna is more isolated in the end than before. It is a very particular academic fashion that has had Edna transformed into some sort of a feminist heroine. In The Awakening, the protagonist, thus Edna, is a victim because she made herself one. Chopin shows it as having a hothouse atmosphere, but that doesn’t seem to be the only context for Edna, who loves no one in fact- not her husband, children, lovers, or friends- and the awakening of whom is only that of
Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia. “Kate Chopin.” Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th Edition, Sep2013. Academic Research Database. 1 Nov. 2013