Analysis Of Edna Pontelliers The Awakening - 1596 Words

Social expectations have haunted people across the timeline, however, have changed as life has progressed. Today, women specifically may be labeled by their body size or the way they speak, being cast out of society and even being subjected to physical and/or emotional abuse. On the contrary, in the nineteenth century women faced harsh discrimination by white men that objectified them and forced them to submit to their husbands and tend to their every need. Today, women would never face to live in such an animalistic way, however many found themselves fulfilling the role without protest and enjoying the simplicity of such a life back in the 1800s. Edna Pontellier, however, refused to be one of these obedient women, deciding to instead†¦show more content†¦The sea was her freedom, her escape from the Edna who submitted for the role of an endearing wife as she finds purchase on her true identity. At the end of the story, Edna once again finds herself next to the sea in search of strength and peace. She felt â€Å"like some new-born creature, opening its eyes in a familiar world that it had never known† (Chopin 189). The sea allows her to be free, to see the world in the way it was supposed to appear rather than the way society wants it to be seen. She wanted to love who she wanted to love, do as she wanted to do, paint when she wanted to paint, live a life of independence and peaceful freedom where the real her was expressed. Chopin in no way withholds her literary talent as she incorporates such a powerful symbol into her story, expressing Edna’s journey in finding herself and what she stood for in a powerful and successful manner. In the end, Chopin had Edna end her life in the place where it truly began, the sea, to express the penultimate act in discovering herself.. The powerful symbol of freedom and escape represented Edna finding peace and rest in eternal freedom. In addition to the incorporation of symbolism, Kate Chopin writes the story of Edna Pontellier with descriptive, sensory imagery that significantly follows her path of discovery. Throughout the entirety of the text, Edna finds herself beginning to long for Mademoiselle Reisz’sShow MoreRelatedAnalysis Of Edna Pontelliers The Awakening991 Words   |  4 Pagesnever truly discover the person they are supposed to be. In the story â€Å"The Awakening† Edna Pontellier has chosen the domestic lifestyle and, in doing so has lost sight of who she is. â€Å"The Awakening† is about her journey in attempt to discover the person she is supposed to be. Edna’s search for her true identity is respectable; however she does not go about doing this in the right way. In her quest to find her true self, Edna begins to emulate other people’s lives rather than discovering her own. ThisRead MoreEssay about Yaeger’s Critique of Chopin’s The Awakening1003 Words   |  5 PagesYaeger’s Critique of Chopin’s The Awakening In â€Å"‘A Language Which Nobody Understood’: Emancipatory Strategies in The Awakening,† Patricia Yaeger questions the feminist assumption that Edna Pontellier’s adulterous behavior represent a radical challenge to patriarchal values. Using a deconstructionist method, Yaeger argues that in the novel adultery functions not as a disrupting agent of, but, rather, as a counterweight to the institution of marriage, reinforcing the very idea it purports toRead MoreWolffs Analysis of Chopins The Awakening647 Words   |  3 PagesWolff’s Analysis of Chopin’s The Awakening In her essay Un-Utterable Longing: The Discourse of Feminine Sexuality in Kate Chopins The Awakening, Cynthia Griffin Wolff creates what Ross Murfin describes as a critical whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. (376) By employing a variety of critical approaches (including feminist, gender, cultural, new historicism, psychoanalytic and deconstruction) Wolff offers the reader a more complete (albeit complex) explanation of Edna PontelliersRead MoreThe Awakening: An Emergence of Womens RIghts in the Late Nineteenth Century1330 Words   |  6 PagesThe Awakening: An Emergence of Women’s Rights in the Late Nineteenth Century Kate Chopin’s The Awakening addresses the role of women within society during the late nineteenth century. The novel is set in South Louisiana, a place where tradition and culture also play a vital role in societal expectations. The novel’s protagonist, Edna Pontellier, initially fulfills her position in society as a wife and as a mother while suppressing her urges to live a life of passion and freedom. Edna’s relationshipRead MoreEssay on Analysis of Edna Pontellier761 Words   |  4 PagesCharacter Analysis of Edna Pontellier Edna Pontellier was a very respectable woman from the 1800s that was unsatisfied with her situation in life. Mrs. Pontellier was a mother of two sons and had a husband whom she adored at the beginning of their marriage, but overtime they have became distant and her sexual desires were no longer being fulfilled. She soon broke the role society had casted upon her and became rebellious by leaving her womanly duties behind. Kate Chopin reveals Edna PontelliersRead MoreEdna Pontellier Analysis1868 Words   |  8 Pages In analyzing the character development of Edna Pontellier as a character, she becomes a radical woman of this literary age. Through her development, Mrs. Pontellier exhibits characteristics that would not be deemed as acceptable behavior from a married woman of the late 1800’s as American society is beginning to see a shift into the Industrial Revolution. Throughout Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, Edna Pontellier undergoes several episodes of bipolar behavior through her activities and her familyRead MoreThe Awakening By Kate Chopin1462 Words   |  6 Pages sexuality, and the role of women in society. In the novel â€Å"The Awakening,† published in 1899, Chopin uses protagonist Edna Pontellier to confront the social conventions that women faced in the Victorian Era, and the strict rules by the Creole society that limited women to the primary role of wife and mother. Chopin uses symbolism to express these ideas, and emotions as Edna awakens to a world of new possibilities. In this analysis, we will examine two primary symbols of the story, being birds andRead More A Deconstructionist Critique of Chopin’s The Awakening Essay536 Words   |  3 PagesA Deconstructionist Critique of Chopin’s The Awakening The multiplicity of meanings and (re)interpretations informing critical studies of The Awakening reveal a novel ripe for deconstructionist critique. Just as Chopin evokes an image of the sea as symbolic of Edna’s shifting consciousness (â€Å"never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander in abysses of solitude,†138), likewise the deconstructionist reading of a text emphasizes fluidity over structure: â€Å"A text consistsRead MoreWomen: Life Isn’t Fair Essays1817 Words   |  8 Pagesunfair tenets imposed by society do not allow women to be free in how they live. After experiencing an â€Å"awakening†, Edna Pontellier struggles to find her place in a society that does not allow for women to be anything other than compliant wives. She cannot see herself as another submissive woman in her Creole society; rather, she would like to choose her own path. Kate Chopin, in The Awakening, illustrates that women are unable to live the ir lives as they see fit through Edna’s struggle to cope withRead More Showalter’s Analysis of Chopin’s The Awakening Essay601 Words   |  3 PagesShowalter’s Analysis of Chopin’s The Awakening In â€Å"Tradition and the Female Talent: The Awakening as a Solitary Book,† Elaine Showalter makes a compelling argument that â€Å"Edna Pontellier’s ‘unfocused yearning’ for an autonomous life is akin to Kate Chopin’s yearning to write works that go beyond female plots and feminine endings† (204). Urging her reader to read The Awakening â€Å"in the context of literary tradition,† Showalter demonstrates the ways in which Chopin’s novel both builds upon and departs