Runaway By Alice Munro Analysis

In Kate Chopin’s novel, The Awakening, we are introduced to a woman named Edna Pontellier. She is a wife, a mother, and a homemaker who struggles to fit in the ideal “Victorian woman” mold. The expectations of women during the Victorian era was for women to be devoted to her husband, children and her home and it was frowned if a woman were to devote some time for the benefit of herself. The women were like caged birds; unable to use her wings for flight. Throughout the novel, Edna’s dissatisfaction with her life becomes apparent and we see Edna’s journey to independence and self-discovery.

In 1899, Kate Chopin introduced the world to one of the most dynamic fictional women in history in her revolutionary novel, The Awakening. A defiant, passionate, self-aware heroine, Edna Pontellier is the woman I would choose to converse with. At the time of its publication, The Awakening received unrelenting criticism for Edna’s bad parenting, disloyalty to her husband, promiscuity, and decision to take her life due to the overwhelming isolation she felt. I would like to ask Edna what she thinks of these criticisms.

This analysis of The Awakening by Kate Chopin (1899) will use the psychoanalytic image of the mother as a starting point for Edna’s journey of self-realization which is symbolized in physical “Rooms.” As Edna travels to and from the Island and the different “Rooms” she uncovers and develops her personality but ultimately the journey leads to demise. Her demise is because her rooms are tied to her mother, and she is never able to succeed in her Room as Woolf would have wanted because it is tied to the mother, and not the patriarchal father who represents money and creative power. The symbolism of the mother as a Room parallels the concept of a room in A Room of One’s Own (1929) by Virginia Woolf. The physical and metaphorical “Room” in Edna’s

Is a young girl that battles with the loneliness and shame of being poor. She is also a writer, and that’s the tool she uses to find who she really is. A tool powerful enough to reconcile with her pass, her community and it helps her to persevere when she goes to painful situations like the death of her parents and sexual abuse. In one line of the story Esperanza says: “I make a story for my life, for each step my brown shoe takes.

Edna begins with separating herself from the community in Grand Isle. She is “not thoroughly at home in the society of

Nanny is successfully able to convince her granddaughter through her own traumatic experiences and make her feel “sympathy” as she tells Janie she doesn’t want her life to be spoiled like her own life was. At first, Janie refuses to marry Logan Killicks. Nanny being the older one, defends herself by saying “put me down easy” since she can no longer care for Janie and only her wish is for Janie to get married and be protected from the dangers she and her own daughter faced. By calling herself a “cracked plate” Nanny further elucidates that she went through many hardships in her own life and wants to do the right thing for her granddaughter by

Once Ellen’s grandmother wins custody of her, she is forced to leave the family she could actually see love from to her grandmother who hates her, although never truly stated, we believe the cause because of the similar features of Ellen’s and her father’s faces, Ellen then again sees herself as better as the care given of her. Her grandmother soon dies after becoming ill. Ellen has battled with who has the power in her life and her actions, when her grandmother becomes the caregiver of Ellen she tries to take the power from her. Ellen does get her wish when her grandmother dies and she takes the control again. Her father dies as well from his addiction.

As an adult, Jane asserts her independence by rejecting unequal marriage. When Jane finds out that the man she was to marry, Mr. Rochester, was already wed, she ran away. Mr. Rochester pleaded passionately for her to stay, revealing his unfortunate history and even threatening to use physical force to restrain Jane. Both tactics failed since, as Jane puts it, her conscience personified strangles her passion for Rochester. Being a mistress to Rochester in addition to being financially and socially inferior to him prompts her to leave him.

Only beggars do. ”(91) Sripathi Rao was a stranger when he goes to Vancouver to take his orphan granddaughter Nandana. Food, clothing, people, rituals and culture were alien to her. Nandana could not adjust herself with Indian food.

She decides to travel to locate her son who she gave up when she was younger. She does not know where her son was sent by the nuns, after being forced into signing the adoption papers. Her travels lead her closer to an epiphany whereas Evelyn’s travels bring her back into her reality. Philomena is accused of "carnal incontinence", denied pain relief during her breech birth as penance for her "indecency", and still hankers after forgiveness for her shame. She is very different to Laura and Evelyn in the way that she is dependent on Martin.

(Chopin, p148) which caused Edna to commit suicide because she realized she was not happy without her kids and society wouldn’t accept her because she left her husband. Jaine returns back to her hometown after Tea Cake dies. Jaine at the end of the novel is looked at as a survivor and a hero. She left to find happiness, but he happiness that she found was not text book. Jaine found that love starts from within and has to be explored and sought out for.

Similarly to Lennie, Curley’s wife also feels left out and different from everyone else. She is not considered a “normal” wife, or have a “normal” hope for her future. Most people during this time hoped to get married and become a housewife; Curley 's wife aspired to be an actress and only married Curley when it did not work out. Curley’s wife told Lennie, “I ast her if she stole it, too, an’ she said no. So I married Curley (Steinbeck 88).”

Seconds after the nurse comes out and takes away Daisy’s child. Nick Caraway then says, “With a reluctant backward glance the well disciplined child held to her nurse’s hand and was pulled out the door,”(Fitzgerald 106). This event in the novel is critical in portraying Daisy’s inadequacy as a mother and her shallowness as an individual. Daisy treats her daughter like an object only to be brought out when it 's convenient to her liking. She parades her daughter to her guests and then sends her off showing her disregard for her child.

With a little side romance of a cold hearted lawyer, met his old love and law partner who are both assigned to Anna’s case, this story truly dives deep into dynamics of a family. “Either this girl loses her sister, I think, or she’s going to lose herself”. Picoult, writes this book from the point of view of everyone, from Anna, to Julia and Campbell, to Jesse, with each of these chapter switches changes fonts of the story (which can get kind of annoying). Eight days is how long this novel takes, eight days to change a lie, destroy another, a story that is not to take likely. Anna would do anything for Kate, and Kate for Anna (if she was able too), as each of them are willing to die for the other, with an ending that will tear your heart out, nothing will make you want to lie in a pool of your own tears than this heart wrenching

Perhaps it’s due to my close relationship with my mother but I do not think I could leave and go on journey around the world leaving my sick mother behind. I can also understand that it was a very complicated situation that she struggles very much with. At one point in the journey she contacts her mother and her mother tries to come out and finish the journey with her daughter. Tania does not allow her mother to come on the rest of the journey with her because she is supposed to be doing this journey alone, but also because she knows her mother is to sick and to weak.