The late nineteenth century was a time of great social, technological, and cultural change for America. Boundaries were rapidly evolving. New theories challenging age-old beliefs were springing up everywhere, such as Darwin's natural selection. This post-Civil War era also gave men and women opportunities to work side-by-side, and in 1848, the first woman's rights conference was held in Seneca Fall, New York.
These events leading up to the twentieth century had polished the way for the new, independent woman to be introduced. Women "at all levels of society were active in attempts to better their lot, and the 'New Woman,' the late nineteenth-century equivalent of the 'liberated woman,' was much on the public mind" (Culley 117). Women were finally publicly discussing private matters and gaining on their male counterparts’ socioeconomic status, and in 1899, in the midst of the women's movement, American society seemed ready for Kate Chopin’s newest invention, Edna Pontellier.
Madame Edna Pontellier, wife of wealthy and much respected Leonce Pontellier, had the perfect life. Vacationing in Grand Isle, living in a mansion, raising her two boys, Edna seemed untroubled and well cared for. But one cannot see another’s private distresses from the outside. Entrapped by the sequestering tomb of the mindsets of her time and starved for freedom and expression, Edna was willing to give up her life to break free. Because of these traits, Edna exemplified the ideal New Woman. She had freedom of choice, courage, passion, and was fearless. Edna Pontellier was the role model for women striving for the same social ideals; they wanted to be her. All this, and Chopin’s ethos with her well written plethora of short stories and her prospero...
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Seyersted, Per. Kate Chopin A Critical Biography. Baton Rouge, Louisiana: Louisiana State University Press, 1994. Print.
Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism. Ed. Dennis Poupard. Vol. 14. Detroit: Gale Research, 1984. p55-84.
Buhle, Mari Jo. Women and American Socialism, 1870-1920. Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1981.
Culley, Margaret, ed. The Awakening: An Authoritative Text Context Criticism. New York: Norton, 1976.
Koloski, Bernard, ed. Preface. Approaches to Teaching Chopin's The Awakening. By Koloski. New York: MLA, 1988.
Robinson, Lillian. "Treason Our Text: Feminist Challenges to the Literary Canon." Falling into Theory: Conflicting Views on Reading Literature. ed. David H. Richter. Boston: Bedford, 1994.
Seyersted, Per. A Kate Chopin Miscellany. Natchitoches: Northwestern State UP, 1979.
Toth, Emily. Kate Chopin. New York: Morrow, 1990.
Sacrifices can define one’s character; it can either be the highest dignity or the lowest degradation of the value of one’s life. In The Awakening, Kate Chopin implicitly conveys the sacrifice Edna Pontellier makes in the life which provides insight of her character and attributions to her “awakening.” She sacrificed her past of a lively and youthful life and compressed it to a domestic and reserved lifestyle of housewife picturesque. However, she meets multiple acquaintances who help her express her dreams and true identity. Mrs. Pontellier’s sacrifice established her awakening to be defiant and drift away from the societal role of an obedient mother, as well as, highlighting the difference between society’s expectations of women and women’s
Leonce Pontellier, the husband of Edna Pontellier in Kate Chopin's The Awakening, becomes very perturbed when his wife, in the period of a few months, suddenly drops all of her responsibilities. After she admits that she has "let things go," he angrily asks, "on account of what?" Edna is unable to provide a definite answer, and says, "Oh! I don't know. Let me along; you bother me" (108). The uncertainty she expresses springs out of the ambiguous nature of the transformation she has undergone. It is easy to read Edna's transformation in strictly negative terms‹as a move away from the repressive expectations of her husband and society‹or in strictly positive terms‹as a move toward the love and sensuality she finds at the summer beach resort of Grand Isle. While both of these moves exist in Edna's story, to focus on one aspect closes the reader off to the ambiguity that seems at the very center of Edna's awakening. Edna cannot define the nature of her awakening to her husband because it is not a single edged discovery; she comes to understand both what is not in her current situation and what is another situation. Furthermore, the sensuality that she has been awakened to is itself not merely the male or female sexuality she has been accustomed to before, but rather the sensuality that comes in the fusion of male and female. The most prominent symbol of the book‹the ocean that she finally gives herself up to‹embodies not one aspect of her awakening, but rather the multitude of contradictory meanings that she discovers. Only once the ambiguity of this central symbol is understood can we read the ending of the novel as a culmination and extension of the themes in the novel, and the novel regains a...
The possibility of a life beyond the scope of motherhood, social custom, standards of femininity, and wifedom characterize Kate Chopin’s vision of her heroine’s awakening, but Edna’s personal growth remains stifled by her inability to reconcile the contradictory impulses pulling her in different directions. Edna clearly envisions herself somewhere between mother-goddess figure Adele Ratignolle and the artist-spinster Mademoiselle Reisz, yet can not seem to negotiate a space that affords the luxury of love unspoiled by self-sacrifice and obligation. Edna’s “soul” surfaces when she allows herself to act on impulse over duty, but as Chopin’s words reveal, Mrs. Pontellier blindly fol...
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.
Works Consulted Chopin, Kate. A. The Awakening. Anthology of American Literature. Volume II: Realism to the Present.
Koloski, Bernard, ed. Approaches to Teaching Chopin's The Awakening. New York: Modern Language Association of America, 1988. Print.
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Harris, Sharon M. "Kate Chopin." Magill’S Survey Of American Literature, Revised Edition (2006): 1-5. Literary Reference Center Plus. Web. 19 Apr. 2014.
Wyatt, Neal "Biography of Kate Chopin" English 384: Women Writers. Ed. Ann M. Woodlief Copyright: 1998, Virginia Commonwealth University. (26 Jan. 1999) http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/eng384/katebio.htm
In the 1890s, American women emerged as a major force for social reform. Millions joined civic organizations and extended their roles from domestic duties to concerns about their communities and environments. These years, between 1890 and 1920, were a time of many social changes that later became known as the Progressive Era. In this time era, millions of Americans organized associations to come up with solutions to the many problems that society was facing, and many of these problems were staring American women right in the face.
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.
Chopin, Kate. The Story of an Hour. Cummings Study Guide, 2006. Web. 10 Feb 2012.
Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia. “Kate Chopin.” Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th Edition, Sep2013. Academic Research Database. 1 Nov. 2013
---. "At the 'Cadian Ball." The Awakening and selected stories by Kate Chopin. Ed. Sandra M. Gilbert. New York: Viking Penguin Inc., 1983.