The awakening is plenty of characters that describe in a very loyal way the society of the nineteenth century in America. Among the most important ones there are Edna Pontellier, Léonce Pontellier, Madame Lebrun, Robert Lebrun, Victor Lebrun, Alcée Arobin, Adéle Ratignolle and Mademoiselle Reisz.
Edna Pontellier: she is the protagonist of the novel. With twenty eight years, she is housewife married with Léonce Pontellier and mother of two boys, Etienne and Raoul. At the beginning of the novel she is comfortable in her marriage, where she sees the end of passion and the beginning of a responsible life. Through a series of experiences, she evolves into an amazing independent woman, who lives apart from her husband and her children, the only ones of whom she was in charge and is just responsible for her own acts. In a way, the only responsibilities she has during this period are art and having fun with friends. As we have said, she is the main
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character in this novel and she is described as "The charm of Edna Pontellier’s physique stole insensibly upon you. The lines of her body were long, clean and symmetrical; it was a body which occasionally fell into splendid poses; there was no suggestion of the trim, stereotyped fashion-plate about it" (13). Léonce Pontellier: he is the protagonist's husband, a forty-year-old New Orleans businessman that is only worried about business and friends, so he is rarely with his sons although he loves them. As he seems to be the perfect husband, he expects the same from Edna. The problem is that his relationship with Edna lacks passion and excitement, the most important aspect to keep alive a relationship as he is very worried about social appearances, reason why they end living each in a different place. In the novel, he is described in the following way: “Mr. Pontellier wore eye-glasses. He was a man of forty, of medium height and rather slender build; he stooped a little. His hair was brown and straight, parted on one side. His beard was neatly and closely trimmed” (1). Madame Lebrun: she is the owner of the Grand Isle cottages where the protagonist spends her summer and met almost all the other characters of the novel. With the help of her two sons, she makes sure everything is in order in the cottages. During that summer, it seems that they all are a little family. “She was a fresh, pretty woman, clad always in white with elbow sleeves" (2). Robert Lebrun: he is a wealthy, charming twenty-six-year-old man. During the summer, he falls in love with Edna Pontellier and decides to go to Vera Cruz with the pretext of business to get distance from her as she is a married woman. Throughout most of the novel he is away and the subject that Edna could never have. However, at the end of the story, when he returns and each declares their love, they discover that in fact they want different things: he wants to marriage her, she wants freedom. Victor Lebrun: he is Robert’s younger brother and Madame Lebrun's favorite son. The thing he likes the most is to flirt throughout the entire novel. "Victor was the younger son and brother—a tete montee, with a temper which invited violence and a will which no ax could break" (21). It is important to take into account the use of the French expression tete montee, this expression means hothead in English. Alcée Arobin: he is "the Don Juan of the New Orleans Creole community", that is, a young man known for his relationships with married women.
He tries to court Edna and becomes his lover satisfying his physical necessities while her husband is on a business. A quote that could have us to understand better Alcee as character could be the following. “His manner was quiet, and at times a little insolent. He possessed a good figure, a pleasing face, not overburdened with depth of thought or feeling; and his dress was that of the conventional man of fashion” (72).
Adéle Ratignolle: she is Edna’s close friend. She represents just the opposite of what Edna does, she is the ideal wife. She centers her life on taking care of her children and doing the housework. She is submissive to her family and tries to make Edna do the same with her own family. In relation to her, there is a quote in the novel that describes her:"The women were both of goodly height, Madame Ratignolle possessing the more feminine and matronly figure"
(13). Mademoiselle Reisz: This character does not appear until chapter 9. She is a very egocentric and independent woman and piano player who becomes very close friend with Edna. She frequently visits her to listen her music as it seems to be a way out to freedom. She influences Edna both artistic and sentimentally as thanks to her she starts painting and she also maintains her love to Robert Lebrun alive as he sends letters to Mademoiselle Reisz and she lets Edna to read them. She represents the independence and freedom that Edna wants to reach. The following quote shows how her personality is: "She was a disagreeable little woman, no longer young, who had quarreled with almost every one, owing to a temper which was self-assertive and a disposition to trample upon the rights of others" (24).
Edna Pontellier was on her way to an awakening. She realized during the book, she was not happy with her position in life. It is apparent that she had never really been fully unaware However, because her own summary of this was some sort of blissful ignorance. Especially in the years of life before her newly appearing independence, THE READER SEES HOW she has never been content with the way her life had turned out. For example she admits she married Mr. Pontellier out of convenience rather than love. EDNA knew he loved her, but she did not love him. It was not that she did not know what love was, for she had BEEN INFATUATED BEFORE, AND BELIEVED IT WAS love. She consciously chose to marry Mr. Pontellier even though she did not love him. When she falls in love with Robert she regrets her decision TO MARRY Mr. Pontellier. HOWEVER, readers should not sympathize, because she was the one who set her own trap. She did not love her husband when she married him, but SHE never once ADMITS that it was a bad decision. She attributes all the problems of her marriage to the way IN WHICH SOCIETY HAS defined the roles of men and women. She does not ACCEPT ANY OF THE BLAME, AS HER OWN. The only other example of married life, in the book, is Mr. and Mrs. Ratignolle, who portray the traditional role of married men and women of the time. Mr. Pontellier also seems to be a typical man of society. Edna, ON THE OTHER HAND, was not A TYPICAL WOMAN OF SOCIETY. Mr. Pontellier knew this but OBVIOUSLY HAD NOT ALWAYS. This shows IS APPARENT in the complete lack of constructive communication between the two. If she had been able to communicate with her husband they may have been able to work OUT THEIR PROBLEMS, WHICH MIGHT HAVE MADE Edna MORE SATISFIED WITH her life.
Madame Defarge tries to kill and hurt everyone who opposes her in Tale of Two Cities. Her only hobby is knitting, and she knits as a way to show anger and bring fear to her enemies. She knits a list of people who die in the revolution. The essay shows how Madame Defarge has motives for her killings, her allies, and if the behavior is justified.
Madame Ratignolle simply does not understand Edna; to her, sacrificing one’s life is the utmost that a mother can do for her children. It is as if Edna was not even “talking the same language.” In fact, the two women might well be speaking different languages. Unlike Madame Ratignolle who seems to have a baby every couple of years, Edna’s head is not filled exclusively with thoughts about her children. Whereas Madame Ratignolle is motherly at all times, Edna often seems irritated by her role as mother, and her attentions to her children often occur as an afterthought. Madame Ratignolle’s entire being is bound to her children; Edna’s being is of her own design. For her there is more to life than marriage and babies and social obligations. Edna might well, at least in this passage, be asserting an early version of what Betty Friedan discusses in The Feminine Mystique.
Adele Rataignolle serves as not only the epitome of the nineteenth-century woman but as Chopin's model of the perfect Creole "mother-woman". Adele's gold spun hair, sapphire blue eyes, and crimson lips made her strikingly beautiful even though she was beginning to grow a bit stout. A devoted wife and mother Adele idolizes her children and worships her husband. Her days are spent caring for her children, performing household duties, and ensuring the happiness of her husband. Even while vacationing at Grand Isle over the summer she thinks about her children and begins work on creation their winter garments. As a matter of fact sin...
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.
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
In The Awakening by Kate Chopin, the setting is in the late 1800s on Grand Isle in Louisiana. The main character of the story is Edna Pontellier who is not a Creole. Other important characters are Adele Ratignolle, Mr. Ratgnolle, Robert Lebrun, and Leonce Pontellier who are all Creole's. In the Creole society the men are dominant. Seldom do the Creole's accept outsiders to their social circle, and women are expected to provide well-kept homes and have many children. Edna and Adele are friends who are very different because of their the way they were brought up and they way they treat their husbands. Adele is a loyal wife who always obeys her husband's commands. Edna is a woman who strays from her husband and does not obey her husband's commands. Kate Chopin uses Adele to emphasize the differences between her and Edna.
The most prevalent and obvious gender issue present in the novella was that Edna challenged cultural norms and broke societal expectations in an attempt to define herself. Editors agree, “Edna Pontellier flouts social convention on almost every page…Edna consistently disregards her ‘duties’ to her husband, her children, and her ‘station’ in life” (Culley 120). Due to this, she did not uphold what was expected of her because she was trying to be superior, and women were expected to be subordinate to men. During that time, the women were viewed as possessions that men controlled. It was the woman’s job to clean the house, cook the meals, and take care of the children, yet Edna did none of these things. Her lifestyle was much different. She refused to listen to her husband as time progressed and continually pushed the boundaries of her role. For example, during that time period “the wife was bound to live with her husban...
In Chopin's Awakening, the reader meets Edna Pontellier, a married woman who attempts to overcome her "fate", to avoid the stereotypical role of a woman in her era, and in doing so she reveals the surrounding. society's assumptions and moral values about women of Edna's time. Edna helps to reveal the assumptions of her society. The people surrounding her each day, particularly women, assume their roles as "housewives"; while the men are free to leave the house, go out at night, gamble, drink and work. Edna surprises her associates when she takes up painting, which represents a working job and independence for Edna.
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
The novel states, “Edna had prevailed upon Madame Ratignolle to leave the children behind…” (14). Madame Ratignolle had to be forced in a way to leave her children behind to go for a simple day along the beach with Edna. This shows that she wanted to be with her children to take care of them. During the time period women were expected to take care of the children. Also, she bears children to her husband. The novel states, “About every two years she had a baby. At that time she had three babies, and was beginning to think of a fourth one” (9). During this time period women were expected to bear children. Adele already had three kids yet she was still thinking she should have another one. Additionally, Madame Ratignolle does not have a job as far as the reader can tell. The novel states,” ‘I believe I ought to work again[,’ said Edna]... She knew that Madame Ratignolle’s opinion in such a matter would be next to valueless…” (56). Although it is not directly stated that Madame Ratignolle does not work, this quote can be used to infer she does not work. By Madame Ratignolle not having a good
Society of the 19th century gave a heightened meaning to what it meant to be a women. According to the commonly known “code of true womanhood” women are supposed to be docile, domestic creations whose main concerns in life were to be raising children and submissiveness to their husbands. In the book The Awakening written by Kate Chopin; introduces the protagonist, Edna Pontellier a rebellious twenty-eight year old woman who is dissatisfied with the role of being a wife and mother, a woman who desires independence and sexual freedom. She soon discovers she doesn’t quite fit into the role that has been given to her. Through the use of symbolism, imagery, and irony. Chopin exposes expectations for women in order to be accepted during the Victorian
Edna Pontellier is a delicate character, attempting to find happy ground between the devoted mother-woman, Adele, and the independent, cold woman, Reisz. I believe that through
In the novel, The Awakening, Edna Pontellier, the main character, is married to a Creole named Leonce with whom she lives in New Orleans. As the novel opens, they are vacationing in Grand Isle with many other rich couples. Edna is not originally from the Creole lifestyle, so she is not immediately comfortable with being open. However, she starts talking to Adele, another Creole wife, who starts to show her how to open up. As they talk more, Robert, a very young, good-looking attendant, shows up and begins to take a fancy to Edna. While they are at Grand Isle, Edna seems to find herself. Once they leave, Edna starts to become more independent. We begin to see these types of independent women at the turn of the twentieth century. Throughout the novel, we see Edna turn from a dependent woman and housewife, such as Adele, to the powerful and independent woman of the twentieth century.
Edna Pontellier was a woman who was forced to comply with the rules of Creole society, but, in being reluctant to do so, found herself in a world where she felt trapped. She saw how women were supposed to behave but did not have that behavior instilled in herself. She felt confined by her husband's expectations, and did not want to live out the typical role of wife and mother.