Kate Chopins The Awakening - 1176 Words

In Kate Chopin, â€Å"The Awakening†, longing for passion and freedom Edna Pontellier leaves the safety of her gilded cage, only to find that death is her only salvation. In the 1800’s the main role in society for a female was to be a wife and mother, women at this time were the property of their husbands and had little say in anything. Which for Edna was the opposite of what she wanted, she wanted to be free from these responsibilities and to live her own life. Although Edna is not a victim in the role society has chosen for her, she freely walked into her gilded cage and into the role of wife to Leonce Pontellier and mother to their children. The longer she stayed in her marriage, the more she realizes that the passion she needed was not†¦show more content†¦She is not bound to a husband and children, free to do as she pleases. Mademoiselle Reisz embodies everything Edna dreams of; her music inspires Edna to become passionate about her painting and her lif e. In the music, Edna feels the emotion she wants to put on canvas and thus begins her steps away from the gilded cage that has imprisoned her. As her passion comes to life in painting, so does the passion she feels for Robert, which causes Robert to leave the island and leave Edna. Edna’s passion for Robert does not waiver and she pines quietly for him in her heart. After that summer, the family returns to New Orleans and Edna decides to cancel all her social engagements and starts living for herself. During this time, Leonce is away for business and the children are away at their grandmother’s house, leaving Edna alone to her own devices. This gives her a great sense of freedom, she pursues her painting and then one fateful day decides to visit Mademoiselle Reisz. Edna discovers that Robert has been writing Mademoiselle Reisz often and Edna ask to read the letters. Reading the letter from Robert and finding out that he loves her, give Edna the strength to make her final move in the struggle for her freedom. She moves out of Leonce’s house and into a small house, she renames pigeon house. It is at pigeon house that Edna truly becomes freeShow MoreRelatedThe Awakening on Kate Chopins The Awakening1745 Words   |  7 Pages The time period of the 1880s that Kate Chopin lived in influenced her to write The Awakening, a very controversial book because of many new depictions of women introduced in the book. The Awakening is a book about a woman, Edna Pontellier. In the beginning, she is a happy woman with her husband and 2 kids vacationing at Grand Isle. While there, Edna realizes she is in love with Robert Lebrun and that she was just forced into an unloving/dissatisfying marriage with Mr. Pontellier. Robert howeverRead MoreKate Chopins The Awakening1767 Words   |  8 Pageswith experimentation and exploration, followed by personal acceptance, and finally, although not always, societal acceptance. Although we have come a long way on the path of acceptance of different sexual transgressions, the stories of Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, Tennessee Williams’ â€Å"Vieux Carre,† and Lyle Saxon’s â€Å"The Centaur Plays Croquet† show that this type of acceptance has not alwa ys been the case. Each story plays an integral role when looking at the steps on the path to societal acceptanceRead MoreKate Chopins The Awakening1871 Words   |  8 Pagesworshipping her children and submitting to her husband. Kate Chopins novel, The Awakening, encompasses the frustrations and the triumphs in a womans 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. 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Faced with a choice to conform to society’s expectations or to obey personal desires for independence, Edna Pontellier realizes that either option will result in dissatisfaction. Thus, Edna’s awakening in Grand Isle leads to her suicide. Edna’s awakening occurs duringRead MoreEssay on Kate Chopins The Awakening1246 Words   |  5 PagesKate Chopins The Awakening In Kate Chopins, The Awakening, Edna Pontellier came in contact with many different people during a summer at Grand Isle. Some had little influence on her life while others had everything to do with the way she lived the rest of her life. The influences and actions of Robert Lebrun on Edna led to her realization that she could never get what she wanted, which in turn caused her to take her own life. In the Creole culture, outward affection and expressionRead More Kate Chopin’s The Awakening - The Feminist Awakening Essay2094 Words   |  9 PagesThe Feminist Awakening    Women’s rights have evolved over time; beginning with being homemakers and evolving to obtaining professions, acquiring an education, and gaining the right to vote. The movement that created all these revolutionary changes was called the feminist movement. The feminist movement occurred in the twentieth century. Many people are not aware of the purpose of the feminist movement. The movement was political and social and it sought to set up equality for women. Women’s groupsRead MoreFemale Empowerment in Kate Chopins The Awakening7915 Words   |  32 PagesHeinrich-Heine-Università ¤t Wintersemester 2010/11 Vertiefungsmodul Kurs: American Realism and Naturalism - Short Stories Seminarleiter: Georg Schiller Datum der Abgabe: 16.04.2011 Female Empowerment in Kate Chopin’s â€Å"The Awakening† Anjana Dhir BA Englisch KF, Geschichte NF 3. Semester Table of Contents 1. Introduction 3 2. The FrenchRead More The Shocking Ideas of Kate Chopins The Awakening1864 Words   |  8 PagesIdeas of The Awakening Ideas that resist existing social boundaries commonly are rejected at first, because people don’t want to wake up from their reliable lives. Kate Chopin, however, believed that an awakening was in order, and she attempted to open the eyes of society through her novel The Awakening. The public’s reaction to Chopin’s novel was not one of acceptance. Too strong a drink for moral babies, and should be labeled ‘poison,’ was the how the Republic described Chopins work (Seyersted