Edna Pontellier's Attitudes Toward Motherhood In The Awakening

This love can be identified in the relationships between the Capulets and Juliet, or Prince Escalus and Verona. It is obvious that the attitude Lady Capulet has towards Juliet is not tender love from a mother. “Nurse, give leave awhile; / We must talk in secret. Nurse, come back again. / I have rememb’red me; thou’s hear our counsel.”

She simultaneously loves and resents her children because, while she is their mother, she feels that they have taken away her freedom and self-purpose. As Edna journeys in her awakening, she strives to find meaning for herself as Edna, not her children's mother. To prove she is more than just a mother, she distances herself from normal motherly responsibilities. “He reproached his wife with her inattention, her habitual neglect of the children. If it was not a mother's place to look after children, whose on earth was it?”(Chopin, 15) Edna's neglect of her children stems from others expectations for her to submit to and look after her

“It would have been a difficult matter for Mr. Pontellier to define to his own satisfaction or any one else’s wherein his wife failed in her duty toward their children. ”(Chopin 4) In this scene Mr. Pontellier is feeling uneasy regarding how Edna allows to the quadroon nurse to take on her motherly responsibilities so carelessly. Edna does not feel that motherhood is cut out for her. Although she

With news of Mr.Scott’s death, Laura becomes hesitant to host the party, however, Mrs.Sheridan remarks on her daughter’s ridiculousness and absurdity. She states, “People like that don’t expect sacrifices from us” (Mansfields, 6), dismissing the need to be civil towards the low-class. It is not merely just that she refuses to express courtesy to the lower classes, but also that she believes it impossible of such people to possess expectations for the wealthy. Her mother’s impervious behavior stuns Laura and she becomes conflicted; where is the fine line between respect and power? In addition, Jose mindlessly assumes that Mr.Scott had been drunk and her insensitive comment visibly agitates Laura.

Although I do not believe that this is true and I will be discussing my reasons throughout this essay. My perspective of Lady Capulet is that she isn’t a good mom at all and that she is a very obedient person. Lady Capulet is not a good mom at all for many reasons. One reason is because, she never knows where her daughter is and she lets the nurse take care of Juliet 24/7 even when she could be the one to take care of her. In the play, Lady Capulet asks the Nurse, “Nurse, where’s my daughter?

It was a definition, always touched with emphasis, with reproach and disappointment. Also it was a joke on me(142)”. The main character does not take into account how her mother might want someone to bond with until she is older. Because of her immaturity she has a bad relationship with her parents and her brother even though her thoughts are justifiable. The story is split between the parents versus the children on the relationship they all have and how they contribute to each other’s character.

She tends to arouse controversy. Firstly, Patient Griselda represents other women as the weak and really hopeless creatures who do not have any rights and are totally dependent on the men. Without men's instructions and help they are not able to do some particular activities. It means that wives should be fully submissive to their husbands who do not show any respect for them. That is why, the acts of Griselda seem to be absurd.

Her situation grew worse when her father remarried and adopted his new wife’s two children. Shelley’s stepmother saw no reason for her to

Lucy despises this notion almost as much as she loathes her mother and struggles with it daily. One concept she finds very repulsive is the importance of a woman’s image. She is disgusted by Dinah’s obsession with beauty and comments that “among the beliefs I held about the world was that being beautiful should not matter to a woman, because it is one of those things that would go away” (Kincaid, 57). Later on she mentions that “for the first time ever [she] entertained the idea that [she] might be beautiful”, but declares that she will “not make too big a thing of it” (Kincaid, 132). Lucy’s rejection of society’s emphasis on appearance frees her from the insecurities that are brought upon by a self-image based on looks.

But they were not the ones to blame for their deaths. Lady Capulet, Juliet’s mother, is supposed to be the one she goes to for advice and someone she can talk to, but instead Juliet is alone and makes many impulsive decisions. Lady Capulet didn’t raise Juliet, the Nurse did, and so Juliet has no respect for her mother’s decisions, which pushed Juliet away from ever being able to trust her mother. Another reason that Lady Capulet should be held responsible for their deaths is because she tried to force Juliet to marry Paris, and Juliet lost all reason to trust her mother. Leading up to the death of the star-crossed lovers, Lady Capulets self-centered actions push Juliet away and cause her

Governor Bellingham attacks Hester by saying that because she is wearing the scarlet letter, she is not the right person to take care of a child. The governor is assuming that Hester would not take care of pearl in the right manner. This is makes the people listening to the conversation, the people in the town, doubt Hester. It makes the reader more likely to sympathize with Hester because it is more obvious to us that the letter and parenting/ taking care of a child are not

Dialectal Journal; The Awakening (Kate Chopin) Motif- The Sea Quote Literary/Style Elements Commentary Additional Ideas “There was no sound abroad except the hooting of an old owl in the top of a water-oak, and the everlasting voice of the sea, that was not uplifted at that soft hour.” (7) Personification Chopin’s use of personification demonstrates how the sea provides a feeling of comfort. The soft hour helps to communicate the feeling of comfort as Chopin tries to show how the setting of the sea is calming.

In The Awakening, Kate Chopin demonstrates the struggle of women to gain independence in society. Edna Pontellier has this epiphany about her marriage to Lèonce before she had broken the vase. The broken vase symbolizes the movement of rebellion abasing social norm, and being treated like an object by her husband. Edna refusal of Lèonce obnoxious demands demonstrates her first act of rebellion. Lèonce had came outside and demands Edna to come inside who was lying on the hammock after a night of partying with Robert.

Kate Chopin stood as a feminist icon at the turn of the nineteenth century with feminism running rampant through her short stories. In The Awakening, Edna Pontellier is often seen as the ideal feminist, due to her sought out independence from her husband and her family. Often readers overlook Madame Adele Ratignolle as a feminist because she is thought to be the perfect mother and wife, unlike Edna as she separates herself from her family in search of a personal awakening in a way that would be seen as selfish. The reader is led to believe that Adele is the complete opposite of Edna because she is the “mother-woman” of the story. Madame Adele is not perfect by any means; regardless of what stereotype the narrator tries to place her in.

Kate Chopin’s novel, The Awakening, shows a women trying to go against gender norms in the nineteenth-century. The protagonist, Edna, is not the normal nineteenth-century woman. She is more like the normal twenty-first-century woman. For example, she refuses to be a wife and a mother. Throughout the novel, Chopin continues to examine gender relationships.