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Ambiguity in the awakening by kate chopin
Ambiguity in the awakening by kate chopin
The awakening kate chopin analysis
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Gisela Garcia
A Block
September 10, 2015
AP Language and Composition
The Awakening Essay
In 1899, when The Awakening was published, Kate Chopin shocked the public with her portrayal of a woman’s spiritual, sexual, and social awakening. During the late nineteenth century, a woman's place in society was strictly to exalt her children and comply to her husband’s every wish and desire.The Awakening exhibits the exasperations and the victories in a woman's life as she tries to deal with uncompromising cultural demands. Disregarding the cliche of a "mother-woman," Edna battles the pressures that force her to be a completely devoted housewife. Even though Edna's suicide is a waste of her struggles against that way of life, The Awakening motivates feminism as a method for women to acquire sexual freedom, to be financially stable without a man, and their own identity.
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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
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.
In the book Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer wrote about Christopher McCandless, a nature lover in search for independence, in a mysterious and hopeful experience. Even though Krakauer tells us McCandless was going to die from the beginning, he still gave him a chance for survival. As a reader I wanted McCandless to survive. In Into the Wild, Krakauer gave McCandless a unique perspective. He was a smart and unique person that wanted to be completely free from society. Krakauer included comments from people that said McCandless was crazy, and his death was his own mistake. However, Krakauer is able to make him seem like a brave person. The connections between other hikers and himself helped in the explanation of McCandless’s rational actions. Krakauer is able to make McCandless look like a normal person, but unique from this generation. In order for Krakauer to make Christopher McCandless not look like a crazy person, but a special person, I will analyze the persuading style that Krakauer used in Into the Wild that made us believe McCandless was a regular young adult.
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.
Kate Chopin's The Awakening tells the story of Edna Pontellier, a young wife and mother living in the upper crust of New Orleans in the 1890s. It depicts her journey as her standing shifts from one of entrapment to one of empowerment. As the story begins, Edna is blessed with wealth and the pleasure of an affluent lifestyle. She is a woman of leisure, excepting only in social obligations. This endowment, however, is hindered greatly by her gender.
In 1729, Jonathan Swift published a pamphlet called “A Modest Proposal”. It is a satirical piece that described a radical and humorous proposal to a very serious problem. The problem Swift was attacking was the poverty and state of destitution that Ireland was in at the time. Swift wanted to bring attention to the seriousness of the problem and does so by satirically proposing to eat the babies of poor families in order to rid Ireland of poverty. Clearly, this proposal is not to be taken seriously, but merely to prompt others to work to better the state of the nation. Swift hoped to reach not only the people of Ireland who he was calling to action, but the British, who were oppressing the poor. He writes with contempt for those who are oppressing the Irish and also dissatisfaction with the people in Ireland themselves to be oppressed.
Throughout Kate Chopin’s novel The Awakening, the main protagonist Edna Pontellier, ventures through a journey of self-discovery and reinvention. Mrs.Pontellier is a mother and wife who begins to crave more from life, than her assigned societal roles. She encounters two opposite versions of herself, that leads her to question who she is and who she aims to be. Mrs. Pontellier’s journey depicts the struggle of overcoming the scrutiny women face, when denying the ideals set for them to abide. Most importantly the end of the novel depicts Mrs.Pontellier as committing suicide, as a result of her ongoing internal
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
In the setting of Kate Chopin's The Awakening, most women have little independence and are expected to be selfless, subservient, child bearing wives. Adèle Ratignolle, the ideal “mother woman” is respected and well loved by society, but she is unable to express herself and is shackled by society's expectations. Mademoiselle Reisz, on the other hand, maintains her independence and freedom to express herself, but at the price of society's acceptance. Throughout her awakening, Edna realizes that in the context of her time, she cannot be respected by society like Adèle Ratignolle, while respecting herself like Mademoiselle Reisz.
Critics of Kate Chopin's The Awakening tend to read the novel as the dramatization of a woman's struggle to achieve selfhood--a struggle doomed failure either because the patriarchal conventions of her society restrict freedom, or because the ideal of selfhood that she pursue is a masculine defined one that allows for none of the physical and undeniable claims which maternity makes upon women. Ultimately. in both views, Edna Pontellier ends her life because she cannot have it both ways: given her time, place, and notion of self, she cannot be a mother and have a self. (Simons)
In Kate Chopin's The Awakening, a woman's entrapment within a patriarchal society reveals to her the bonds of having to live up the society's standards which further demonstrates the corruption and skewed perspectives of the post-Victorian era. In the novella, Edna Pontellier's, a wife of a rich Creole businessman, sexual and spiritual desires surface themselves which distinguishes a separation between her pursuit of happiness and her responsibilities as a mother and wife. As an oppressed character, she does anything in her power to achieve freedom, no matter how sinful the acts to getting there may be. Chopin employs a critical tone to this manner of behavior yet remains sympathetic to Edna's struggles. The frequently recurring motif of children accentuates Edna's rebellion against her roles as a woman within her community.
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.
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.
Kate Chopin boldly uncovered an attitude of feminism to an unknowing society in her novel The Awakening. Her excellent work of fiction was not acknowledged at the time she wrote it because feminism had not yet come to be widespread. Chopin rebelled against societal norms (just like Edna) of her time era and composed the novel, The Awakening, using attitudes of characters in favor to gender, variations in the main character, descriptions and Edna's suicide to show her feminist situation. Society during Chopin's time era alleged women to be a feeble, dependent gender whose place laid nothing above mothering and housekeeping. In The Awakening, Chopin conveys the simple attitudes of society toward women mainly through her characters Leonce, Edna, Madame Ratignolle, and Madame Reisz. She uses Leonce and Madame Ratignolle to depict examples of what was considered adequate in society. In a critical essay written by Emily Toth, she states that "The Awakening is a story of what happens when a woman does not accept her place in the home. The novel moves us because it illustrates the need for women's psychological, physical, social, and sexual emancipation--the goals of feminists in the twentieth century as well as the nineteenth" (Toth). However, Chopin takes account of the opposing characters of Edna and Madame Reisz in a determination to express desires and wants concealed by the female gender.
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.
In Kate Chopin’s The Awakening women in the 19th century completely lack any role in society besides wives, mothers, and women actively searching men to marry and procreate with. Societal expectations dictate that women must marry a man and obey his every whim, bear children and shelter and protect them. If not married and or mothers, they must seek a man and remain chaste and pure until they do so. While at first Edna Pontellier complies with society’s standards, her enlightenment allows her to challenge and in a feministic finale, free herself from the overpowering patriarchal influence that controls her society. Edna completely contravenes the societal expectations forced upon her. She disregards her husband and their marriage, neglects her children, and in the end, refuses to accept society’s standards and commits suicide. Edna’s tragic end highlights the female struggle that accompanies an enlightened perspective on gender issues.