The awakening is a story where the protagonist Edna rediscovers herself as an independent woman. She breaks the rules that were implemented in the society of the time period she lived in. Edna was married to Leonce and had children, however she was not attached to her family, and it was not because she didn’t love them, but she was not a devoted mother and wife. Edna starts to feel attraction towards Robert who was known for his tendency to seek married women. When Robert leaves to Mexico, Edna wants to live in a separate house from her husband. Adele a friend of Edna advices her that her action will damage her reputation, but Edna wants to be free and independent women and she decide to move out of the house. Edna starts to like her freedom …show more content…
Attachment and Feminism theory are similar in that both discuss a concept of developing a sense of self or self-identity. On the book the awakening Edna can be described as a respectable woman who is married and has children, but she is not happy with the role of wife and mother. She wants to be by herself away from the duties of being a female in the Victorian era. In order to be the independent women she wants to be, she deconstructed the role of submissive women and she decided to move out her husband’s house while he was away. Both theories can explain how Edna is looking for herself identify as a women and her own sense of self. She also deconstructs the expectations set by the society she lives in. Attachment and Feminism theories can help describe Edna’s self identity, because she also discovers her sexual desire with Robert. She concentrates more on her painting career and leaves her social responsibilities on the side. She becomes disobedient towards her husband one could link her change with the feminist theory because Edna wants to have an equal role as her husband. During that time it was normal for males to have affairs but if women had an affair it was degrading for her and her family. Leonce finds Edna detachment and disobedience as if Edna was sick and he calls a physician to check the unnatural behavior of his wife. Of course Leonce thinks there is something wrong with Edna because she is not acting as a proper women and wife. When Edna starts her …show more content…
Some of the differences of Attachment theory and Feminism theory is that the attachment theory has to do with Edna’s experience of attachment and her internal working model and Feminism is about undoing gender inequality. Edna seems to be reserved and doesn’t show much interest towards her family, she explains in the book that she is not committed to the role of being a conditional mother. Edna is also distant towards her friends as well, she talks to Adele but there is not a deep connection with her. In the society that she lives she is a respectable woman who assists social events and is seen as typical house women with the responsibility to stay home and take care of the house and children while her husband can go out at night with his friends and have a demanding position in society. The attachment theory has to do with how Edna interacts with her the people that surround her and how she acts with her own family. And then we have the feminism theory is about gender inequality and trying to achieve equity by eradicating gender stereotypes of masculinity and femininity. Edna does this by being a liberal women and deciding to dedicate her time to art, and she avoids her social events that were normative for her. She wants to be free from men, she wants to be independent and escape from the traditional women stereotype. From the book I was able to interpret that since Edna was able to understand that people in her society will not understand her wants she had no
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.
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.
When Edna felt dissatisfied with the life she is given, she pursues other ways in which to live more fully. She attempts painting and enters into an affair with another man. As her desire for freedom grows, she moves out of her husband’s house and tries to live life as she sees fit. She lives a life reflecting her new philosophies towards life, philosophies that are in conflict with that of society. The oppression by man caused Edna to have a social awakening, illuminating the meaning of the novel.
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.
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
Chopin’s novel is filled with different themes. Her themes are what really gets her message to her readers. one of her themes is identity because becoming the person that you want to be is what The Awakening is all about. Knowing who you are is a big component in becoming free. That is why Chopin created an identity theme in her novel. Edna is constantly trying to find out who is wants to be. Edna knows that she is not the perfect mother and wife like Madame Ratignolle, and she also knows that she would never want to live alone like Mademoiselle Reisz. Who is the true Edna P? That is what Edna is find out, and that is the question most women should ask themselves. Who is the true me? Chopin has another theme that pushes her message even more.
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
Individual will is a force that is significant, and yet can be manipulated by a more powerful source. In the Victorian Age setting within The Awakening by Kate Chopin, men have been manipulated by society. They are forced to reflect their norms on women. These norms have been caused repressive and manipulative behavior within men. Edna Pontellier, protagonist of the novel, confronts several men who confront her yearning for individualism. Each male plays a role ordained by society and as a result they develop characteristics that promote specific, yet conflicting images to the reader.
The author of The Awakening uses the characters in the novel to create Edna. The characters create Edna by influencing her decisions, her desire for independence, and her newfound sexuality. Robert, Mademoiselle Riesz, and Alcee Arobin help Edna become an independent woman by stimulating her new sexuality and desire for independence, and supporting her expression through art and her bold decisions throughout the novel. Leonce, Madame Ratignolle, and Edna’s father try to prevent Edna’s awakening by helping her learn the ways of tradition and convincing her that she can be a better wife and mother but do not support her in her new lifestyle. These persistent attitudes these characters share drive Edna to separate from her family and move out showing her desire for independence.
...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.
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.
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.
In it they find a forerunner of Liberation. Though The Awakening has a similar path with Madame Bovary of Flaubert, it doesn’t share a lot with that amazing precursor. Emma Bovary awakens tragically and belatedly indeed, but Edna only goes from one reverie mode to another, until she frowns in the sea, which represents to her mother and the night, the inmost self and death. Edna is more isolated in the end than before. It is a very particular academic fashion that has had Edna transformed into some sort of a feminist heroine. In The Awakening, the protagonist, thus Edna, is a victim because she made herself one. Chopin shows it as having a hothouse atmosphere, but that doesn’t seem to be the only context for Edna, who loves no one in fact- not her husband, children, lovers, or friends- and the awakening of whom is only that of
Throughout the novel The Awakening, Edna discovers her own identity, independent of her husband and children, and realizes that she is discontent in her roles as wife and mother. According to BBC, “During the reign of Queen Victoria, a woman's place was in the home, as domesticity and motherhood were considered by society at large to be a sufficient emotional fulfillment for females.” There were very few women who were working elsewhere besides at home, because in society the husbands were the breadwinners in the family. A man’s job was to earn money