Argumentative Essay On The Awakening

Abby Kidder Mrs. Schroder Advanced Placement Literature and Composition 3 January 2018 Mrs. Pontellier’s Internal Discoveries Kate Chopin’s The Awakening epitomizes the type of a novel where the main character uncovers his or her true identity and person. Mrs. Pontellier, the main character, risks her well-being, livelihood, and life to find her purpose. She breaks barriers and societal standards in order to attain her desired self. The reader engages with the work alongside Edna as she travels on the path of self discovery.

as b dl "The Awakening" is a phrase which symbolically describes what happens to the main character, Edna Pontellier, as she becomes an aware and conscious human being in the course of this book. What is she conscious of? Mostly the fact that her life has been constrained by her role in her family, and that there’s more to Edna than wife and mother extraordinaire. symbolism, metaphor 16- at a very early period she had apprehended instinctively the dual life- that outward existence which conforms, the inward life which questions.

Kate Chopin's The Great Awakening explains how Edna Pontellier, an everyday woman of the nineteenth century, opens up and explores herself. A majority of the important characters in her story are the men in Edna's life. Men like Leonce, Robert, and Alcee all are key pieces to her awakening. They all influence Edna in their own ways. Leonce Pontellier is a controlling husband and an all around materialistic man.

Plot Summary: Mr. and Mrs. Pontellier are on their summer vacation at Grand Isle. There, Edna has an affair with Robert which starts her awakening. From then on, she goes into a rebirth and takes actions in

After swimming successfully, she develops feelings for Robert. After this awakening, Edna starts to step back and rethink her entire life; her marriage, her role, and even herself. She realizes she feels sort of imprisoned in this life she has had for so long. Edna finally starts doing things for her, she is letting herself feel an attraction for another man even though she is married and she also gets into art and has everyone in the house model for her. Rather than doing things to get the house ready for her husband or spending time playing with her children, she is distracted by all her newly found

It is common for people in everyday society to conform to society’s expectations while also questioning their true desires. In the novel, The Awakening, by Kate Chopin, the main protagonist Edna Pontellier is said to possess, "That outward existence which conforms, the inward life that questions." In other words, Edna outwardly conforms while questioning inwardly. Kate Chopin, uses this tension between outward conformity and inward questioning to build the meaning of the novel by examining Edna’s role as a wife, mother, and as nontraditional woman in the traditional Victorian period. Edna outwardly conforms to society’s expectations by marriage.

Edna continually questions whether or not she is destined to live a life of subordination or if she can find her own freedom. Edna Pontellier’s defiant nature is brought out

family and from pursuing her own interests. Unhappy with her conditions, Edna rebels against them, however this results in her not being accepted in society. Thus, Edna deliberately sacrifices her freedom in a way which Edna’s value of free nonconformity. The sacrifice goes hand-in-hand with the meaning of the work as a whole that there is no place in society for those who do not conform to its expectations. A misogynistic and sexist time, the Victorian Era envisage and encloses women into a certain image that they are meant to be devoted, subordinate and more-or-less obsessed with their husband and family.

For many years, Kate Chopin’s The Awakening was considered perhaps one of the most scandalous novels written by a woman about a woman’s sexual and spiritual liberation and independence. Much of Chopin’s fiction has been praised as a celebration of female sexuality, conspicuously highlighting the tension between erotic desire and the demands that come from marriage, family life, and society (Martin 1). Unlike other literary contemporaries, Chopin does not attempt to moralize her heroines’ moral frailty, and more importantly she unapologetically allows her heroines’ unconventional sexuality to thrive (Martin 6). Only recently has The Awakening been acknowledged as a well-crafted narrative of Edna Pontellier’s struggle between individuality and

Edna begins to become more aware of her position in her relationship with her husband. She is now comprehending the feelings she associates with the Apollonian and Dionysian influences in her

Syeda Ahmed prompt 5 The Awakening AP LIT Mr. Amoroso  A modern woman emerging and developing ahead of her time, dealing with the challenges of gaining independence in a time period where woman weren’t human. This is Edna Pontellier’s conflict told in the novel the Awakening by Kate Chopin. Late in her already establish life Edna a wife and mother of two discovers herself to realize she goes against society’s ideals as a woman.

Every situation has it own point of view. In the novel, Edna attempted to convinved herself that whateer dishonesty she was doing was not wrong. She seems to be drowning herself in her own issues. throughout the novel, she commits moral crimes such as maintaining a false marriage.

“No body, but he who has felt it, can conceive what a plaguing thing it is to have a man’s mind torn asunder by two projects of equal strength, both obstinately pulling in a contrary direction at the same time.” Laurence Sterne’s quote of mental conflict relates to Kate Chopin’s novel, “The Awakening”, where Chopin’s main character faces contrasting influences concerning her life. The two influences which direct the actions of Chopin’s main character, Edna, are the novel’s contemporary views concerning a woman’s position in society, and Edna’s unorthodox personal opinions. Both opposing impacts form the mental contrast which directs Edna’s inner conflict throughout Chopin’s novel, and Edna’s conflicting influences prove to illuminate the meaning

She loved painting when she had the time and loved watching Mademoiselle Reisz play the piano. In Chopin’s book she says, “Mr. Rontelier was shocked and his wife’s absolute disregard for her duties as a wife angered him. When he got mad at her she grew in being rude and went to pINT.” Edna was mad at her husband and went on defying him. She decided to be mad at her husband and went on defying him.

Edna is definitely not the ideal wife or mother role, but she could be known as being a great leader for rebelling against society and the general idea of a general woman’s characteristics- others never influenced her decisions and she only ever followed what she felt best suited herself, which is what made her the strong woman she expressed herself as throughout the