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Discuss the title the awakening
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The awakening summary essay
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Through different events that occur, or better yet, through an “awakenings,” Edna turns into an upsettingly free woman, who lives separate from her significant other and children. Edna is also liable only to her own impulses and desires. Unfortunately, Edna’s awakening isolates her from others and eventually leads nowhere; she is left in complete loneliness.
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.
Could the actions of Edna Pontellier in Kate Chopin's novella The Awakening ever be justified? This question could be argued from two different perspectives. The social view of The Awakening would accuse Edna Pontellier of being selfish and unjustified in her actions. Yet, in terms of the story's romanticism, Edna was in many ways an admirable character. She liberated herself from her restraints and achieved nearly all that she desired. Chopin could have written this novel to glorify a woman in revolt against conventions of the period. Yet, since the social standpoint is more factual and straightforward, it is the basis of this paper. Therefore, no, her affairs, treatment of her family and lovers, and suicide were completely unwarranted. She was not denied love or support by any of those close to her. Ultimately Edna Pontellier was simply selfish.
In “The Awakening,'; the conflicting directions of oppression versus free will illuminate the meanings of social awakening and overcoming tyranny. Awakening from the slumber of patriarchal social convention, Edna must rouse herself from the life of dullness she has always lived.
She loves to have her “senses stirred,” and her imaginative desires enact these sensations for her when the objects of the desires themselves cannot. Consequently, Edna realizes early in her own life that she is not satisfied with her role as a mother enslaved to humdrum domestic life with a husband to match. However, she does not consciously realize and choose to pursue her own desire for an exciting, passionate, courageous lover until after the novel opens upon one summer vacation at Grand Isle.
In The Awakening, the male characters attempt to exert control over the character of Edna. None of the men understand her need for independence. Edna thinks she will find true love with Robert but realizes that he will never understand her needs to be an independent woman. Edna's father and husband control her and they feel she has a specific duty as a woman. Alcee Arobin, also attempts to control Edna in his own way. Edna knows she wants freedom. She realizes this at the beginning of the book. "Mrs. Pontellier was beginning to realize her position in the universe as a human being, and to recognize her relations as an individual to the world within and about her (Pg. 642). Throughout The Awakening she is trying to gain that independence that she wants so bad.
Fox-Genovese also emphasizes this point, when she says that both the feminist and the psychological aspect of “The Awakening,” “must be read together, for the grounds for choosing one rather than the other do not exist” (262). Other women may have, and do, find a way to exist in such a society and be happy with the little freedom they are allowed. Therefore, Edna Pontellier is portrayed a prisoner of her own upper-class society. Her surroundings demand of herself that she conforms to certain feminine ideals, which she however, is not willing to do. This final episode with Edna naked for the first time stresses the idea of rebirth in Edna; she is now "some new-born creature" (113) at the end of her life. Expression becomes a symbol of freedom for Edna. Fox-Genovese’s conclusion about “The Awakening” is that the novel tells the story of the progress in the Edna Pontellier’s character, as well as her mental regression. As Edna discovers the injustice of her male dominated society, rejecting its values, and managing to break away from society’s traditional gender roles, her stories furthermore depict her “psychological regression,” as Fox-Genovese has stated about Edna’s journey in “The Awakening” (262). Edna can only be herself when she is alone, without the
The Awakening sheds light on the desire among many women to be independent. Throughout the novel Edna conducts herself in a way that was disavowed by many and comes to the realization that her gender prevented her from pursuing what she believed would be an enjoyable life. As the story progresses Edna continues to trade her family obligations for her own personal pleasures. This behavior would not have been accepted and many even criticize the novel for even speaking about such activities. Kate Chopin essentially wrote about everything a women couldn’t do. Moreover, it also highlights the point that a man is able to do everything Edna did, but without the same
...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.
In fact, Edna seems to drift from setting to setting in the novel, never really finding her true self - until the end of the novel. Chopin seems highly concerned with this question throughout her narrative. On a larger scale, the author seems to be probing even more deeply into the essence of the female experience: Do women in general have a place in the world, and is the life of a woman the cumbersome pursuit to find that very place? The Awakening struggles with this question, raising it to multiple levels of complexity. Edna finds liberation and happiness in various places throughout the novel, yet this is almost immediately countered by unhappiness and misery.
There are many ways of looking at Edna's Suicide in The Awakening, and each offers a different perspective. It is not necessary for the reader to like the ending of the novel, but the reader should come to understand it in relation to the story it ends. The fact that readers do not like the ending, that they struggle to make sense of it, is reflected in the body of criticism on the novel: almost all scholars attempt to explain the suicide. Some of the explanations make more sense than others. By reading them the reader will come to a fuller understanding of the end of the novel (and in the process the entire novel) and hopefully make the ending less disappointing.
The human psyche is, and continues to be, an exceptionally labyrinthine and almost unconquerable entity. Its vastness dictates what we do and who we become making the emotions and actions we express as unique as the humans that express them. Whether those emotions are erratic or placid is a mystery that no man may ever know. Kate Chopin’s novel The Awakening is a story of which the psychological facets contrive and control the characters to the greatest degree. Edna Pontellier, as the title suggests is a complex psychological portrait with traits and actions more thoroughly understood through psychological observation and analysis.
Maybe one must contemplate how much his or her happiness is truly worth. Regardless, every person has internal conflict not easily solved. In The Awakening, Edna Pontellier struggles with two conflicting forces, expectations of her and her own desires, illuminating the meaning of the novella: defying societal expectations in order to seek individuality and independence is always just. Edna is a complex character driven by her need for independence and freedom.
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.
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.