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What are kate chopin character traits in the story of an hour essay
Literary analysis kate chopins story of an hour
Literary analysis kate chopins story of an hour
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Isolation comes in many forms and prompts self-reflection as well as physical, social, and mental detachment. In the novel, Chopin use isolation to enhance certain aspects of a Edna’s development and change. The isolation and despondency Edna feels throughout her awakening is the main motive behind her committing suicide. Edna’s failed relationship with her husband Leonce highlights her tendency towards isolation and her breaking away from the security Leonce provides. During their vacation on Grand Isle, the couple has various disputes and Edna, in turn, begins to defy the wishes of her husband. She proclaims,“I mean to stay out here. I don’t wish to go in, and I don’t intend to. Don’t speak to me like that again; I shall not answer you”(Chopin 47). Edna’s deficiency of her husband’s intentions reflects her new perspective on life as well as growing theme that Edna prefers her isolation. Edna’s repetitive use of “I” reflects her intention to distinguish herself as individual apart from her marriage.The beneficiary …show more content…
Edna takes her ring off and flings it across the room. The narrator develops, “When the saw [the ring] lying there, she stamped her heel upon it, striving to crush it. But her small boot heel did not make an indenture, not a mark on the little glittering circlets”(Chopin 80). The description of this scene reveals the metaphor of the wedding ring as a marital restrain to Edna. The oppressive nature of her marriage to Leonce prompts this outlandish behavior and further isolates Edna as she contemplates her future decisions. Although Enda openly admits that Leonce is a great husband, their differences in their perspectives leads Edna to move out of her Esplanade Street home and into her own “pigeon” home where her progression in her awakening is hindered by days of agonizing
Essentially, Edna is not able to fulfill any of the roles that are presented by Chopin in the novel: mother, sister, daughter, wife, friend, artist, lover to either man, and finally the traditional role of a woman in society. She does not quite fit into any niche, and thus her suicide at the end of the novel is the only way for Edna’s story to end. Chopin must have Edna die, as she cannot survive in this restrained society in which she does not belong to. The idea of giving yourself completely to serve another, Edna declares “that she would never sacrifice herself for her children, or for any one” (47). However, her awakening is also a realization of her underprivileged position in a male dominated society. The first sign that Edna is becoming comfortable with herself, and beginning to loosen the constrictions of not being an individual is when she asks Robert, her husband, to retrieve her shawl: "When he returned with the shawl she took it and kept it in her hand. She did not put it around her" (30). Edna is trying to establish herself as an artist in a society where there is no tradition of women as creative beings. For any woman to suggest a desire for a role outside the domestic sphere, as more than a mother or housewife, was perceived as
Leonce Pontellier, the husband of Edna Pontellier in Kate Chopin's The Awakening, becomes very perturbed when his wife, in the period of a few months, suddenly drops all of her responsibilities. After she admits that she has "let things go," he angrily asks, "on account of what?" Edna is unable to provide a definite answer, and says, "Oh! I don't know. Let me along; you bother me" (108). The uncertainty she expresses springs out of the ambiguous nature of the transformation she has undergone. It is easy to read Edna's transformation in strictly negative terms‹as a move away from the repressive expectations of her husband and society‹or in strictly positive terms‹as a move toward the love and sensuality she finds at the summer beach resort of Grand Isle. While both of these moves exist in Edna's story, to focus on one aspect closes the reader off to the ambiguity that seems at the very center of Edna's awakening. Edna cannot define the nature of her awakening to her husband because it is not a single edged discovery; she comes to understand both what is not in her current situation and what is another situation. Furthermore, the sensuality that she has been awakened to is itself not merely the male or female sexuality she has been accustomed to before, but rather the sensuality that comes in the fusion of male and female. The most prominent symbol of the book‹the ocean that she finally gives herself up to‹embodies not one aspect of her awakening, but rather the multitude of contradictory meanings that she discovers. Only once the ambiguity of this central symbol is understood can we read the ending of the novel as a culmination and extension of the themes in the novel, and the novel regains a...
Often in novels, a character faces conflicting directions of ambitions, desires, and influences. In such a novel, like “The Awakening,'; the main character, Edna Pontellier, faces these types of conflicting ideas. In a controversial era for women, Edna faces the conflict of living in oppression but desiring freedom. The patriarchal time period has influenced women to live only under the husband’s thumb but at the same time, break away from such repression. These opposing conflicts illuminated the meaning of “social awakening'; in the novel.
Her transformation and journey to self-discovery truly begins on the family’s annual summer stay at Grand Isle. “At a very early period she had apprehended instinctively the dual life- that outward existence which conforms, the inward life which questions. That summer at Grand Isle she began to loosen a little of the mantle of reserve that had always enveloped her” (Chopin 26). From that point onward, Edna gains a deeper sense of desire for self-awareness and the benefits that come from such an odyssey. She suddenly feels trapped in her marriage, without being in a passionately romantic relationship, but rather a contractual marriage. Edna questions her ongoing relationship with Leonce; she ponders what the underlying cause of her marriage was to begin with; a forbidden romance, an act of rebellion against her father, or a genuine attraction of love and not lust? While Edna internally questions, she begins to entertain thoughts of other men in her life, eventually leading to sensuous feelings and thoughts related to sexual fantasy imagined through a relationship with Robert Lebrun. Concurrently, Edna wavers the ideas so clearly expected by the society- she analyzes and examines; why must women assimilate to rigid societal standards while men have no such
By Edna finding herself in the book she was freeing herself. In the novel Edna finds a new hobby, painting. Painting was her escape from the world, and it made her feel good. In the novel it says that “Mrs. Pontellier had brought her sketching materials, which she sometimes dabbled with in an unprofessional way. She liked the dabbling. She felt in it satisfaction of a kind which no other employment afforded her.”(V pg 15) Chopin explain the feeling that Edna gets while painting. It is a feeling that nothing else give her, and that is why she does it even though she is not good. Painting is what gets Edna through because it is not easy becoming you own person. When thing seem to go left Edna paints. The novel Mr. Pontellier make a comment “’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 day which would be better employed contriving for the comfort of her family.’" (XIX pg 62) This comment represent how society worked back then. In responds to his statement Edna just said "I feel like painting,"(XIX pg 62) By her say she wants to go paint after Mr. Pontellier made that comment Chopin is show that Edna is escaping, or freeing herself from society. Most women need some type of escape for themselves. They need something that will get them through the process of becoming free. They need something that will make them feel good when they are
Kate Chopin uses characterization to help you understand the character of Edna on how she empowers and improves the quality of life. Edna becomes an independent women as a whole and enjoys her new found freedom. For example, Chopin uses the following quote to show you how she begins enjoying her new found freedom.”The race horse was a friend and intimate association of her
She desperately wanted a voice and independence. Edna’s realization of her situation occurred progressively. It was a journey in which she slowly discovered what she was lacking emotionally. Edna’s first major disappointment in the novel was after her husband, Leonce Pontellier, lashed out at her and criticized her as a mother after she insisted her child was not sick. This sparked a realization in Edna that made here realize she was unhappy with her marriage. This was a triggering event in her self discovery. This event sparked a change in her behavior. She began disobeying her husband and she began interacting inappropriately with for a married woman. Edna increasingly flirted with Robert LeBrun and almost instantly became attracted to him. These feelings only grew with each interaction. Moreover, when it was revealed to Edna that Robert would be leaving for Mexico she was deeply hurt not only because he didn’t tell her, but she was also losing his company. Although Edna’s and Robert’s relationship may have only appeared as friendship to others, they both secretly desired a romantic relationship. Edna was not sure why she was feeling the way she was “She could only realize that she herself-her present self-was in some way different from the other self. That she was seeing with different eyes and making the acquaintance of new conditions in herself that colored
Individual will is a force that is significant, and yet can be manipulated by a more powerful source. In the Victorian Age setting within The Awakening by Kate Chopin, men have been manipulated by society. They are forced to reflect their norms on women. These norms have been caused repressive and manipulative behavior within men. Edna Pontellier, protagonist of the novel, confronts several men who confront her yearning for individualism. Each male plays a role ordained by society and as a result they develop characteristics that promote specific, yet conflicting images to the reader.
Another aspects of the story is that once Edna’s awakening begins to take place, she is on a roller coaster of emotions, from the manic exuberance of listening to music and the sounds of the water, her connection to robert--it’s as though all her senses are opened up. Between times, however, she is really depressed, as though all the color that Chopin imparts so beautifully in the descriptions of the other scenes, has become dull and uninteresting. Then, she is flung into an emotional upheaval when she reads Robert’s letter to Mlle Reisz, as the latter plays Wagner. Clearly, these kinds of emotions cannot be borne by a woman whose cultural structure does not admit the building of her own that it might sustain the weight and number. She is overwhelmed. She must escape, and she does, for her situation now is powerfully reminiscent of the “joy that kills” in “Hour.”
Additionally, Edna’s sacrifice helped her established an identity for herself. “I would give up the unessential; I would give my money, I would give my life for my children; but I wouldn’t give myself, I can’t make it more clear; it’s only something which I am beginning to comprehend, which is revealing itself to me” (Chopin 57). She realizes how much she valued herself and how she would handle herself. As well as, this emphasizes on the meaning of The Awakening, of how women are able to define themselves as something more than a
Leonce’s stifling dominance over Edna pushes her to sacrifice her place in the relationship in order to retain her integrity. When Leonce confronts Edna on the hammock, he gives her many reasons as to why she must go inside the house. Edna does not wish t...
The setting Edna is in directly affects her temperament and awakening: Grand Isle provides her with a sense of freedom; New Orleans, restriction; the “pigeon house”, relief from social constraints. While at Grand Isle, Edna feels more freedom than she does at her conventional home in New Orleans. Instead of “Mrs. Pontellier… remaining in the drawing room the entire afternoon receiving visitors” (Chopin 84), Edna has the freedom to wander and spend time with Robert, rather than being restricted to staying at home while she is at Grand Isle. While sailing across the bay to the Cheniere Caminada, “Edna felt as if she were being borne away from some anchorage which had held her fast, whos chains had been looseining – had snapped the night before” (Chopin 58). The Cheniere Caminada at Grand Isle gives Edna an outlet from the social constraints she is under at home and at the cottage at Grand Isle. As Edna is sailing away she can feel the “anchorage” fall away: the social oppression, the gender roles, and the monotonous life all disappear; the same feeling and sense of awakening she gets when she sleeps for “one hundred years” (Chopin 63). New Orleans brings Edna back into reality – oppression, society, and depression clouds her mind as she is living a life she doesn’t want to live. New Orleans is the bastion of social rules, of realis...
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.
In this final passage, Chopin seems to emphasize words describing the ecstacy of solitude that Edna encounters in her final visit to the sea. When Edna speaks of there being “[…] no living thing in sight” (Chopin 139) around her, her thoughts never stray to a memory of her past experiences, acquaintances, or even emotions. Even when Edna sees her bathing suit from the past summer, her thoughts remain fixated on solely the unending sea that lies before her.
Her memory of running away from her Father and church when she was a young girl living in Kentucky shows how desperate she is to be free. However, Edna gives up her hopes of freedom for marriage in the hopes that all will fall into place afterwards. Edna’s expectation that marriage and children is proven false when she still is not happy with her life afterwards. She feels that life is worthless and that there should be more to what she is. Edna is not like the other creole mothers; she holds an affection for her children, but it comes and goes. Occasionally she will hold them fiercely to her chest and yet others she will forget them. Her husband disapproves of her lack of maternal instinct and rebukes her when he discovers one of their children, Raoul, sick in his bed. Edna is not alarmed by it, but his harsh words make her burst into tears on the front porch, after he has fallen asleep. Mr. Pontellier does not care about his wife much as a person, only as something he owns. He views everything this way, new lace curtains, glassware, furniture. He is disappointed in his wife because, in his view, she does not function well as a mother. Edna’s lack of