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What is the main theme of the awakening
Problems that Edna faces in the awakening
Essay questions about the awakening by kate chopin
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The end to existence, more commonly known as death, is a unique and moving form of liberation. Death has the power to grant freedom from illness, safety from a life of danger, and in the case of Edna Pontellier, refuge from a life of entrapment. In the novel, The Awakening, written by Kate Chopin, the literary work’s main character Edna Pontellier struggles to find her own identity and sense of selfhood. Edna fights to find her place amongst the expectations and traditions of society while herself longing for a life of independence and personal will. Despite numerous efforts made to find a suitable and fulfilling place in American society in the 1890s, Edna falls short, is not accepted by her peers, and is incapable of finding true happiness. Because Mrs. Pontellier finds that she shares with no other her visions of independence, individual strength, and personal happiness, the only fitting way Edna is able to fulfill these visions and fully awaken from a previous life of ignorance and unconsciousness, is through death. “Given the choices available to her, the ‘fulfillment’ of Edna’s desire can only be merger, and presumably death, in the element that first awakened it” (Freeman). Death frees Edna of unwanted responsibilities, from a judgmental society, from the bore of life, and most effectively from her old self. Because of Edna’s death by sea, she is able to fully transform and evolve into the woman she is destined to be. In the novel, The Awakening, despite her tragic death, the protagonist Edna Pontellier experiences an awakening through her fatal swim thus freeing herself from a life of entrapment.
Edna’s death represents personal and individual freedom and a release from society’s restraints. Edna lives an unfulfilling and...
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...wakening, despite her tragic death, the protagonist Edna Pontellier experiences an awakening, revival, and transformation through her fatal swim thus freeing herself from a life of entrapment and oppression.
Works Cited
Chopin, Kate. The Awakening. New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1995. Print.
Evans, Robert C. "Renewal and Rebirth in Kate Chopin's The Awakening." Bloom's Literature. Facts On File, Inc. Web. 15 Apr. 2014. .
Freeman, Barbara Claire. "The Awakening: Waking Up at the End of the Line." Bloom's Literature. Facts On File, Inc. Web. 13 Apr. 2014. .
Kleypas, Kathryn. "Coming of age in The Awakening." Bloom's Literature. Facts On File, Inc. Web. 15 Apr. 2014 .
Merriam-Webster. “Liberation.” Merriam-Webster. Web. 16 January 2014. .
Kate Chopin's novella The Awakening tells the story of Edna Pontellier, a woman who throughout the novella tries to find herself. Edna begins the story in the role of the typical mother-woman distinctive of Creole society but as the novelette furthers so does the distance she puts between herself and society. Edna's search for independence and a way to stray from society's rules and ways of life is depicted through symbolism with birds, clothing, and Edna's process of learning to swim.
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.
We are told there are days when she "was happy to be alive and breathing, when her whole being seemed to be one with sunlight.." On such days Edna "found it good to be alone and unmolested." Yet on other days, she is molested by despondencies so severe that "...
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.
The Awakening is a novel about the growth of a woman becoming her own person; in spite of the expectations society has for her. The book follows Edna Pontellier as she struggles to find her identity. Edna knows that she cannot be happy filling the role that society has created for her. She did not believe that she could break from this pattern because of the pressures of society. As a result she ends up taking her own life. However, readers should not sympathize with her for taking her own life.
Sullivan, Barbara. "Introduction to The Awakening." In The Awakening, ed. Barbara Sullivan. New York: Signet, 1976.
Sullivan, Barbara. "Introduction to The Awakening." In The Awakening, ed. Barbara Sullivan. New York: Signet, 1976.
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
Throughout Kate Chopin’s novel The Awakening, the main protagonist Edna Pontellier, ventures through a journey of self-discovery and reinvention. Mrs.Pontellier is a mother and wife who begins to crave more from life, than her assigned societal roles. She encounters two opposite versions of herself, that leads her to question who she is and who she aims to be. Mrs. Pontellier’s journey depicts the struggle of overcoming the scrutiny women face, when denying the ideals set for them to abide. Most importantly the end of the novel depicts Mrs.Pontellier as committing suicide, as a result of her ongoing internal
Ramos, Peter. "Unbearable Realism: Freedom, Ethics and Identity in 'The Awakening.'" College Literature 37.4 (2010): 145-65. MasterFILE Premier. Web. 28 May 2014. .
New Essays on The Awakening. Ed. Wendy Martin. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1988.
Ranging from caged parrots to the meadow in Kentucky, symbols and settings in The Awakening are prominent and provide a deeper meaning than the text does alone. Throughout The Awakening by Kate Chopin, symbols and setting recur representing Edna’s current progress in her awakening. The reader can interpret these and see a timeline of Edna’s changes and turmoil as she undergoes her changes and awakening.
Edna’s recognition of herself as an individual as opposed to a submissive housewife is controversial because it’s unorthodox. When she commits suicide, it’s because she cannot satisfy her desire to be an individual while society scorns her for not following the traditional expectations of women. Edna commits suicide because she has no other option. She wouldn’t be fulfilled by continuing to be a wife and a mother and returning to the lifestyle that she led before her self-discovery.
Chopin, Kate. "The Awakening." 1899. The Complete Works of Kate Chopin. Ed. Per Seyersted. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 1969. 881-1000.
In comparison to other works such as Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn wherein the title succinctly tells what the story shall contain, Kate Chopin’s The Awakening represents a work whose title can only be fully understood after the incorporation of the themes and content into the reader’s mind, which can only be incorporated by reading the novel itself. The title, The Awakening, paints a vague mental picture for the reader at first and does not fully portray what content the novel will possess. After thorough reading of the novel, one can understand that the title represents the main character, Edna Pontellier’s, sexual awakening and metaphorical resurrection that takes place in the plot as opposed to not having a clue on what the plot will be about.