Kate Chopin 's novel, The Awakening, focuses on the female protagonist Edna Pontellier. Set in the late eighteenth century, Mrs. Pontellier is expected to be the obediant maternal woman who dotes on her children and admires her husband. Edna appears as the ideal Victorian woman despite her reclusive personality. But as the novel progresses, Edna starts her awakenings where she begins her diffacult journey of self expression and self identity. Symbolism and imagery are key components throughout the novel and are used to more intimately explain Edna 's awakening. Specifically, location. The sensuality of Grand Isle, confinement of the "Pigeon house", and helplessness in the Pontellier mansion shape Edna and pave the path towards her …show more content…
Swimming empowers Edna and teaches her to be strong on her own. Specifically, how to be independant and gain control of her own body,to which in society, her husband owns. While in the ocean, Edna explained how "She wanted to swim far out, where no woman had swum before." Edna wants to defy societies expectations and branch away from the ideal Victorian image. But, this also hints at danger because Edna could be overestimating her abilities, foreshadowing future events which eventually lead Edna to her demise. Her life, however, not only ended in the sea, but began in the sea. The ocean refers to an image of cleansing and rebirth. Edna is starting over and becoming a new person, a person she 's been expected to hide underneath society 's demands. Edna 's awakening becomes very prominent after her altercations with the sea at Grand Isle. After the Pontellier 's vacation at Grand Isle, they arrived back home in New Orleans, Lousiana. Coming back home was not something Edna looked forward to, as it meant leaving her newfound identity on the Island, where it was accepted. Edna displays how desolated she feels: “As their stay at Grand Isle drew to its close, she felt that …show more content…
This is bitter-sweet for Edna who is able to finally express her true self, but is restricted to keeping those feelings to herself. Edna 's true self is nothing of what is expected of her. She is subjected to multiple awakening 's throughout her travels to Grand Isle, the "pigeon house" and life at the Pontellier mansion. Unfortunately, when Edna tries to fly away from her expected roles, she only lands in another cage. She is ultimately trapped and unable to escape her reality no matter where she goes. Edna feels as if noone understands her. Not Robert, who in the end could not defy societies rules, not Adèle, who kept trying to get Edna to diminish her wayward thoughts, and not Leone, who cared more about image than feelings. Edna is told countless times by Madame Reisz that in order to fly away and escape, she must have strong wings. But Edna overestimates her strength and instead of "[soaring] above the level plain of tradition"(pg. 110), she falls back to Earth exhausted and bruised. Edna 's final awakening is that she cannot escape society, despite her constant moving, and
In chapter VI, we see most of the main ideas of the novel mentioned as the beginning of Edna’s awakening is described. The author expresses how Edna is unique in her desire to explore such concepts as fulfillment, self discovery, and independence. As the story continues we see Edna’s need for these things grow, and as new characters are introduced we see how different Edna is becoming from the rest of society. This is just the authors first mention of Edna’s growing awareness, but the passage also foreshadows the turmoil that will come from it later on in the novel. It suggests Edna’s inevitable mark of death, placed on her from the start of her awakening. Overall, this passage gives the reader a starting point to look back to when reviewing Edna’s character growth and the events that lead to her suicide.
“A feeling of exultation overtook her, as if some power of significant import had been given her to control the working of her body and her soul” implies the tremendous joy that encourages her to shout, as well as underscores the significance of the experience in terms of the greater awakening, for the experience actually does provide Edna with the ability to control her own body and soul for the first time. Her “daring and reckless” behavior, her overestimation of strength, and the desire to “swim far out, where no woman had swum before” all suggest the tragic conclusion that awaits Edna. Whether her awakening leads her to want too much, or her desires are not fully compatible with the society in which she lives, she goes too far in her awakening. Amazed at the ease of her new power, she specifically does not join the other groups of people in the water, but rather goes off to swim alone. Indeed, her own awakening ultimately ends up being solitary, particularly in her refusals to join in social expectations. Here, the water presents her with space and solitude, with the “unlimited in which to lose herself.
...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.
In Kate Chopin's novel The Awakening, Edna's two different houses symbolize her life greatly. Her first house, the mansion of which she shared with her husband, symbolized her life before she started to awaken and realize the kind of life she was in. Her second house, the pigeon house of which she lived in alone, shows her life after she starts to awaken and realize what is going on with her life and that she was not happy before. These two houses show very strong meaning of a before and after of her awakening.
...instead, she chooses to succumb to death (Boren 181). On the other hand, choosing the solitude of the sea is a triumph of Edna’s artistic soul. In life, there is no real solitude; Edna fearlessly swims out to face the solitude of death.
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.
She doesn't follow the rules. morals that all the women surrounding her succumb to in life. By defying these "laws" Edna makes clear the morals that all the other. women value the satisfaction of their husband, the acceptance of society, and the conformity to the stereotypical roles of a woman. In The Awakening, Edna is used as a tool to emphasize the surrounding.
She is 28 years old, living comfortably and married to an older man connected to his life of business located in New Orleans. Because of this, Edna never settled into the altruistic motherly cast that belonged to people like the other women that vacationed at Grand Isle to get away from the sickness and hotness from the city. She instigated a trip towards self-discovery that led to multiple awakenings: to her isolated self as a “solitary soul,” to the happiness of “swimming far out” into the sensually appealing sea, to her fervor shown in music, to her own longing to be an artist, to a romantic fondness towards a young man, to being on her own, to
In The Awakening, Edna is constrained culturally by the gender roles of 1890’s New Orleans, and throughout the book, she makes advances towards becoming free of these gender roles, and consequently, her constraints. Chopin writes, “Even as a child she had lived her own small life all within herself. At a very early period she had apprehended instinctively the dual life—that outward existence which conforms, the inward life which questions” (Chopin 18). The excerpt above is a direct example of Edna’s dual life. The duality of Edna’s life is extremely constraining because the gender roles of being a woman in southern society in 1890 force her into submission: she has to carry herself a certain way on the outside, or risk being excluded from “polite society”. Edna is aware of this, and in result, her inner personality is much more stifled in relative to her outward personality. Throughout the book, the way people view her changes greatly, as her deviant inward personality starts to triumph over
In this vision Edna is showing her desire for freedom, desire for escaping from her roles as wife and mother, from her husband Léonce who keeps her in a social cage.
Evidently, throughout the whole novel, Edna is conflicted by society as a result of her refusal to conform to it. Edna, living an unfulfilled life, yearns to find meaning and independence. Edna believes her family is holding her back from living a truly enriching life, even seeing her own
It can be seen how they all connect to the sea and her life in her last moments. First, is the solitude she experiences and the narrator says, “But when she was there beside the sea, absolutely alone, she cast the unpleasant, pricking garments...and the waves that invited her” (132). Solitude is present but this time this loneliness she feels with connections of the sea is giving her comfort as she prepares to enter it. Second, is her sexual desires and the narrator says, “The touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace” (133). As she walks into the sea it is “Embracing” her body giving her that satisfaction and fulfilling her needs of that part of her life she is struggling with and was never able to really achieve. Lastly, is Edna’s desire for that freedom she has been yearning for and the novel says, “She went on and on. She remembered the nights she swam far out, and recalled the terror that seized her at the fear of being unable to regain the shore. She did not look back now, but went on and on... and the old terror flamed up for an instant, then sank again” (133). Edna becomes aware that the only desire she was truly able to fulfill was her desire for freedom and that is by swimming. This is what encourages her to keep swim far out to feel that freedom again because in her awakening it begins by feeling free in the
She lives a double life with an inner and outer self, she finds her outer counterpart is willing to comply with societal standards but her inner part wants to act completely different and rejects what has been assigned to her. As a result, this sparked the need to seek for her independence, “"I would give up the unessential; I would give my money, I would give my life to my children; but I wouldn't give myself. I can't make it more clear; it's only something which I am beginning to comprehend, which is revealing itself to me." Chopin 52. This is a turning point in the story since in essence Edna is saying that even though being a mother is a priority to her, staying true to herself goes above everything else and this is what marks the start of the journey of her awakening.
...ory in such a way that Edna has come to know herself, her true self, and does not need to continue living and searching.
Edna re-enters the sea; scene of her first taste of power and emancipation. She returns because it offers her the only other possible freedom she is allowed; the freedom of death. It is not an act of weakness, or romanticism…it is that of a woman claiming her liberty, her strength…and her self…one last time.