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Symbolism in kate chopin's the awakening
Symbolism in kate chopin's the awakening
Womens roles in the 19th century
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Have you ever wondered what the lifestyles of Nineteenth Century women were like? Were they independent, career women or were they typical housewives that cooked, clean, watched the children, and catered to their husbands. Did the women of this era express themselves freely or did they just do what society expected of them? Kate Chopin was a female author who wrote several stories and two novels about women. One of her renowned works of art is The Awakening. This novel created great controversy and received negative criticism from literary critics due to Chopin's portrayal of women by Edna throughout the book.
The Awakening is a novel about a woman, Edna Pontellier, who is a confused soul. She is a typical housewife that is looking to find herself and be freed from her undesirable lifestyle. Edna was married to her husband for six years and has tow little boys. Her husband, Leonce Pontellier, is the "bread-maker" in the family. He is a business man that pays all the makes and makes sure that his family is financially stable while Edna cares for the children, cooks, and keeps the house clean. The "wifely duties do not fulfill Edna.
Mrs. Pontellier spends her summer at the Grand Isle with her children as she does every summer. She meets a man by the name of Robert Lebrun and realizes that she isn't impressed with her life. When he leaves for Mexico she meets another man that is interested in her but she doesn't feel the same way. Judging by her actions, Edna's husband assumes she has some type of mental problem because he isn't impressed with how she is taking care of the house and children. (Chopin, humanties text, 28-99)
Towards the end of the novel Edna goes back to the Grand Isle to swim at the beach. This is when she fi...
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... Linda Carter, and Lillian Dunmars Roland. 2nd ed. Boston, Ma. Pearson Custom Publishing. 2001. (28-99)
2. Eble, Kenneth. "A Forgotten Novel: Kate Chopin's The Awakening." Western Humanities Review 10, no.3 (Summer 1956): 263, 267-69
3. Justus, James H." The Unawakening of Edna Pontellier." Southern Literary Journal 10. no. 2 (Spring 1978): 108-111
4. Kinnison, Dana. "Female Resistance to Gender Conformity in Kate Chopin's The Awakening.(1899) Women in Literature, Reading through the Lens of Gender. Ed. Jerilyn Fisher and Ellen S. Silber. Forward by David Sadker. Greenwood Press, Westport, Conn. Greenwood. 2003 (22-24)
5. Skaggs, Peggy, "The Awakening's Relationship with American Regionalism, Romanticism, Realism, and Naturalism," Approaches to Teaching Chopin's "The Awakening," Ed. Bernard Kolaski. New York: Modern Language Association of America, 1988. (83-84).
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.
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.
Being a woman, she is completely at the mercy of her husband. He provides for her a lifestyle she could not obtain on her own and fixes her place in society. This vulnerability stops Edna from being truly empowered. To gain independence as a woman, and as a person, Edna must relinquish the stability and comfort she finds in the relationship with her husband. Mr. and Mrs. Pontellier's marriage comprises a series of power plays and responds well to Marxist and Feminist Theory. Leonce Pontellier looks "…at his wife as one who looks at a valuable piece of property…". He views her as an accessory that completes the ideal life for him. Edna, however, begins to desire autonomy and independence from Leonce, so true to the feminist point of view.
The book begins and ends with Edna and her attraction to the water. Throughout the story, water plays a symbolic part in the unfolding of Edna and her relationship to Robert and also her awakening to a new outlook on life along with an independence that takes her away from her family and the socially constraining life in which she no longer can see herself a part of. Edna and Robert are at the beach enjoying each others company. They quickly return to the cottage where Leonce is, and he talks to them. They have had a good time down by the water and Leonce, being the proper business man that he is, does not understand why Robert would rather spend his time chatting with his wife than attending to other things.
In the first place, Edna breaks free from society’s rigid mold in order to find herself, not conforming to the expectations of the men in her life and having the courage to fight for her independence. Throughout the course of the novel, Edna works to find her place in life. The first time Edna begins “to realize her position in the universe as a human being” rather than as her husband’s possession is during the exposition at Grand Isle, where she spent the summer (17). Although she does not fully comprehend what she is feeling, she realizes that she does not want to be another woman who submits to the power of
...tionship she had until she was left with literally no reason to live. Throughout the novella, she breaks social conventions, which damages her reputation and her relationships with her friends, husband, and children. Through Edna’s thoughts and actions, numerous gender issues and expectations are displayed within The Awakening because she serves as a direct representation of feminist ideals, social changes, and a revolution to come.
Koloski, Bernard, ed. Approaches to Teaching Chopin's The Awakening. New York: Modern Language Association of America, 1988. Print.
The Awakening, by Kate Chopin seems to fit neatly into twentieth century ideals. Chopin addresses psychological issues that must have been difficult for people of the late nineteenth century to grasp. Just as Edna died a premature death, Chopin's book died too. The rejection of this book, at the time, ironically demonstrates the pressure many women must have felt to conform to society. Chopin shows the reader, through Edna Pontellier, that society restricts women the right to individuality. This restriction by society can be seen in the clothing Victorian women wore during the time.
Spangler, George M. "Kate Chopin's The Awakening: A Partial Dissent." Novel: A Forum on Fiction 3 (1970): 249-55.
The 19th and 20th centuries were a time period of change. The world saw many changes from gender roles to racial treatment. Many books written during these time periods reflect these changes. Some caused mass outrage while others helped to bring about change. In the book The Awakening by Kate Chopin, gender roles can be seen throughout the novel. Some of the characters follow society’s “rules” on what a gender is suppose to do while others challenge it. Feminist Lens can be used to help infer and interpret the gender roles that the characters follow or rebel against. Madame Ratignolle and Leonce Pontellier follow eaches respective gender, while Alcee Arobin follows and rebels the male gender expectations during the time period.
Seyersted, Per. "Kate Chopin." Twentieth Century Literary Criticism. Eds. James E. Person, Jr. and Dennis Poupard. Vol. 14. Detroit: Gale Research Company, 1984. 60 vols.
Bryfonski, Dedria, ed. Women's Issues in Kate Chopin's The Awakening. Farmington Hills, MI: Greenhaven, 2012. Print.
When Kate Chopin's "The Awakening" was published at the end of the 19th Century, many reviewers took issue with what they perceived to be the author's defiance of Victorian proprieties, but it is this very defiance with which has been responsible for the revival in the interest of the novel today. This factor is borne out by Chopin's own words throughout her Preface -- where she indicates that women were not recipients of equal treatment. (Chopin, Preface ) Edna takes her own life at the book's end, not because of remorse over having committed adultery but because she can no longer struggle against the social conventions which deny her fulfillment as a person and as a woman. Like Kate Chopin herself, Edna is an artist and a woman of sensitivity who believes that her identity as a woman involves more than being a wife and mother. It is this very type of independent thinking which was viewed as heretical in a society which sought to deny women any meaningful participation.
Authors like Chopin helped people realize what was going on during the 1800s. They were able to incorporate the thoughts of women, and what duties society expected them to fulfill during the era. Although these authors were criticized because of what they wrote, they were honest with their opinions and outlooks. According to the Los Angeles Sunday Times, Chopin “…wanted to preach the doctrine of the right of the individual to have what he wants, no matter whether or not it may be good for him” (4). The Los Angeles Sunday Times acknowledges that Chopin’s focus was to convey the rights of women no matter how consequential it might be. Kate Chopin’s upbringing, views on society, and the era she lived in are all incorporated in her novel The Awakening, which expresses the inequalities between male and female.