Edna Pontellier, the central character in Kate Chopin’s, The Awakening functions biologically as a female; she is a housewife and mother of two boys. However, evidence points in the direction of her falling more towards the masculine end of the gender spectrum. Throughout the book, Edna’s various “string of performances as a man propose that gendering derives from deliberate imitation” (Runzo 2). Through her physical appearance, dialogue, and actions, Edna repeals her role as the conventional Victorian woman and obtains a masculine identity in order to thrive in the patriarchal society that constricts and surrounds her.
Chopin utilizes specific words and phrases to paint Edna in a masculine light. We get our first clear description of her
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at the start of the second chapter. “Her eyebrows were a shade darker than her hair. They were thick and almost horizontal, emphasizing the depth of her eyes. She was rather handsome than beautiful” (21). Although the word handsome was widely used in the Victorian era to describe women who were exceptionally pretty, handsome and beautiful are viewed in this text as polar opposites, due to the separation by the word “than.” Chopin is deliberately convincing readers to perceive Edna’s face as masculine. We gain another physical hint at Edna’s masculinity when Chopin purposely juxtaposes her and her close friend, Adele when they are walking on the beach.
“…Madam Ratignolle possessing the more feminine and matronly figure.” (33) Following these lines, a further description of Edna is revealed and one sentence sums up her entire appearance. “A casual and indiscriminating observer, in passing, might not cast a second glance upon the figure” (33). Edna is not viewed as womanly here; compared to Adele; she is rather plain and far less feminine, thus hardly attracting attention from male passerby. Edna chooses simple clothes to wear in the book, for she does not want the other characters to view her as the typical …show more content…
woman. Aside from Edna’s physical presentation, she speaks in a strikingly masculine tone and willfully chooses to not control her choice of words. At one point she says, “Coming back to dinner? his wife called after him. He halted for a moment and shrugged his shoulders” (21). Leonce purposely does not answer his wife, for the simple reason that he is not obligated to. He does as he pleases because men in Victorian society were the ones who ruled over their wives. Being submissive to a woman would be a detriment to their status. However, Edna decides to turn the tables on her husband at a certain point.
Leonce and she get into an argument concerning her sleeping in the hammock outside their house. Leonce continuously insists that she come inside, yet she keeps refusing. Eventually his persistence precipitates Edna’s fiery retaliation to her husband’s wishes. “Don’t speak to me like that again; I shall not answer you” (51). Here Edna shows her defiance towards her husband, which shocks him. Leonce at this point comes to the realization that his wife is acting out of her normal role. By refusing to give in to Leonce, Edna proves that she is starting to gain a masculine
independence. Literary theorist, Sandra Runzo comes into position once again when we begin to examine Edna through her actions. Edna successfully “…disconnects herself from cultural conceptions of woman in Victorian America, pronouncing her own laws…” (5). Edna’s actions are far more masculine, thus breaking the barrier between her and patriarchal society. At one point, she is given brandy by Mademoiselle Reisz. “She drank the liquor from the glass as a man would have done” (101). Edna then “flings” herself down onto the sofa in the next line. Clearly Chopin is stating that Edna’s actions are manly and not the least bit ladylike. Here we see progression in Edna’s lifestyle and personality and her newfound changes are blatantly apparent. One of the most vital role transitions Edna goes through is when she decides to leave her husband to move into the pigeon house. By doing this, she goes from being a submissive housewife to taking on the role of house proprietor, which is basically Leonce’s function in the novel. She tells Mademoiselle Reisz of her plans. “Old Celestine, who works occasionally for me, says she will come stay with me and do my work. I know I shall like it, like the feeling of freedom and independence” (102). Following this quote, the text reads, “she had resolved never again to belong to another than herself.” Edna mirrors her husband here for at the beginning of the book, he views her more as personal property when criticizing her sunburn, and now Edna is seeing Celestine as her personal property. Edna’s thoughts have hardened into the mold of the patriarchal society around her. Edna’s appearance, colloquial speech, and actions have spurred readers to paint her in a masculine light. It is safe to assume that throughout the entire book, she has been wearing a mask of pure masculinity so that she can alleviate the restrictive boundaries placed upon her in the Victorian patriarchal society.
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
When her husband and children are gone, she moves out of the house and purses her own ambitions. She starts painting and feeling happier. “There were days when she was very happy without knowing why. She was happy to be alive and breathing when her whole being seemed to be one with the sunlight, the color, the odors, the luxuriant warmth of some perfect Southern day” (Chopin 69). Her sacrifice greatly contributed to her disobedient actions. Since she wanted to be free from a societal rule of a mother-woman that she never wanted to be in, she emphasizes her need for expression of her own passions. Her needs reflect the meaning of the work and other women too. The character of Edna conveys that women are also people who have dreams and desires they want to accomplish and not be pinned down by a stereotype.
While Madame Ratignolle, Madamoiselle Reisz and Edna are very different characters, all of them are unable to reach their potentials. Madame Ratignolle is too busy being the perfect Louisiana woman that she no identity of her own; her only purpose in life is to care for her husband and children. Madamoiselle Reisz is so defiant and stubborn that she has isolated herself from society and anyone she could share her art with. Edna has the opportunity to rise above society’s expectations of females, but she is too weak to fight this battle and ultimately gives up. While these three characters depict different ideas of what it truly means to be a woman and what women’s role in society should be, none of them can reach their full individual potential.
...oroform, a sensation-deadening stupor, the ecstasy of pain, and an awakening—mark Edna’s self-discovery throughout The Awakening. Still, in the end, Edna follows through with what she told Madame Ratignolle she would and would not be willing to do: “I would give up my life for my children; but I wouldn’t give myself” (69). She gives up her life because she is unwilling to give up her self—her desires, her cravings, and her passions to do what she wants selfishly and without regard for any other being’s wishes. She cannot escape motherhood, nor can she ever hope to find her idealized lover. Thus, she leaves these dissatisfactions behind her as she enjoys her final moments of empowerment and solitude wrapped in the folds of the sea, the hum of bees, and the smell of pinks’ musk.
Kate Chopin's The Awakening tells the story of Edna Pontellier, a young wife and mother living in the upper crust of New Orleans in the 1890s. It depicts her journey as her standing shifts from one of entrapment to one of empowerment. As the story begins, Edna is blessed with wealth and the pleasure of an affluent lifestyle. She is a woman of leisure, excepting only in social obligations. This endowment, however, is hindered greatly by her gender.
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
Throughout Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, Edna Pontellier, the main protagonist, experiences multiple awakenings—the process in which Edna becomes aware of her life and the constraints place on it—through her struggles with interior emotional issues regarding her true identity: the confines of marriage vs. her yearning for intense passion and true love. As Edna begins to experience these awakenings she becomes enlightened of who she truly and of what she wants. As a result, Edna breaks away from what society deems acceptable and becomes awakened to the flaws of the many rules and expected behavior that are considered norms of the time. One could argue that Kate Chopin’s purpose in writing about Edna’s inner struggles and enlightenment was to
Chopin carefully establishes that Edna does not neglect her children, but only her mother-woman image. Chopin illustrates the idea by telling the reader, "...Mrs. Pontellier was not a mother-woman" (689). Edna tries to explain to Adele how she feels about her children and how she feels about herself, which greatly differs from the mother-woman image. She says, "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 I am beginning to comprehend, which is revealing itself to me" (720).
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
In The Awakening, by Kate Chopin, Edna Pontellier is a married woman with children. However many of her actions seem like those of a child. In fact, Edna Pontelliers’ life is an irony, in that her immaturity allows her to mature. Throughout this novel, there are many examples of this because Edna is continuously searching for herself in the novel.
During the late nineteenth century, the time of protagonist Edna Pontellier, a woman's place in society was confined to worshipping her children and submitting to her husband. Kate Chopin's novel, The Awakening, encompasses the frustrations and the triumphs in a woman's life as she attempts to cope with these strict cultural demands. Defying the stereotype of a "mother-woman," Edna battles the pressures of 1899 that command her to be a subdued and devoted housewife. Although Edna's ultimate suicide is a waste of her struggles against an oppressive society, The Awakening supports and encourages feminism as a way for women to obtain sexual freedom, financial independence, and individual identity.
The fact that Edna is an artist is significant, insofar as it allows her to have a sensibility as developed as the author's. Furthermore, Edna is able to find in Mlle. Reisz, who has established herself as a musician, a role model who inspires her in her efforts at independence. Mlle. Reisz, in confiding to Edna that "You are the only one worth playing for," gives evidence of the common bond which the two of them feel as women whose sensibilities are significantly different from those of the common herd. The French heritage which Edna absorbed through her Creole upbringing allowed her, like Kate Chopin herself, to have knowledge or a way of life that represented a challenge to dominant Victorian conventions.
Since Edna digs herself a big hole of conflict, she finds a couple of ways for people to believe that she is disobedient. The first way that people think Edna is successful in her rebellious attitude is when she is stubborn and fights with her husband about silly stuff. One thing she fights with him about is coming inside from lying on the hammock and she refuses after he tells her to come in. Mr. Pontellier said Edna is crazy “I can’t permit you to stay out there all night” he commanded her to come inside (Chopin 53). In the Victorian era people were working on a movement towards women’s suffrage and social equality except there was still a rigid social structure that has a constricting effect on women. Mr. Pontellier can still tell Edna what to do but she was being insubordinate and tells him “no”. Dramatic characterization is shown here and is describing her as stubborn. Another way people think Edna is victorious with rebellion in her society is that she will do whatever she has to, to hold onto her own happiness. Edna will give up her children, husband and herself if
Social expectations of women affected Edna and other individuals in Kate Chopin’s novel The Awakening. The protagonist, Edna Pontellier, struggles throughout the novel in order to become independent and avoid her roles as mother and housewife in American Victorian society in 1899. This was because women during the 19th century were limited by what society demanded of them, to be the ideal housewives who would take care of their families. However, Edna tries to overcome these obstacles by exploring other options, such as having secret relationships with Robert and Arobin. Although Edna seeks to be independent throughout the novel, in the end she has been awakened but has not achieved independence.