Essay On Edna Pontellier's Suicide In The Awakening

Is suicide ever the answer? Even though suicide is a permanent solution to temporary problems, sometimes it’s the only sense of control that a person has left over their own life. The protagonist of Kate Chopin’s “The Awakening”, Edna Pontellier, disobeys completely the paradigms that defined her society set in the 19th century. In an era where women were oppressed and expected to give themselves to their families, Edna failed to find a place in that society and escaped by means of suicide. Society is a strong force that molded Edna as a woman, but through her suicide, she was finally able to escape its grasp.

The similarities these two stories share is, they both have female protagonist who are married and dealing with emotional states of their lives- Mary is pregnant and Mrs. Mallard has heart trouble. Also, both protagonists are young women who are living in a society where it is expected of a women to get married and have children. In addition, they both show two women who eventually realize that they can handle being single and free from the societal standards in the late 18th and early 19th century. However, they also differ because Mrs. Mallard is coping with her husband’s supposed death while Mary Maloney is done with her husband’s excuses and lies.

The novel Beloved by Toni Morrison fundamentally relies on the relationship between the former slave Sethe and the daughter she murdered as an infant, only known to the reader as Beloved. In one scene, Beloved is attempting to make Sethe feel guilty as Sethe argues that her attempted murder of her children was out of love, and that she intended for them to be “together on the other side.” Beloved’s response, in which she points out that, after she “died,” “ghosts without skin stuck their fingers in her and said beloved in the dark and bitch in the light,” shatters the intensely loving, devoted tone that Sethe attempts to establish in favor of a more dramatic, graphic tone and creates intense juxtaposition, a device which is continually used throughout the text. (254) The phrase “ghosts without skin,” overall, exemplifies Beloved’s immature perspective.

America. Dimple’s feelings of helplessness caused by the gap between life’s promises and day-today reality, find expression in ‘Walking nightmares’. Dimple, a very Americanized Indian friend, Ina Mullick, Washed up on an American beach as a dead body draped in Dimple’s own sari (103). At her feet lay Ina Mullick, in Dimple’s sari, a thin line of water spilling from her mouth (103). Her friend Mullick appears in her dream as dead, which properly interpreted could mean that Dimple fervently wishes herself dead.

Lady Macbeth claims that its better to be the person who were murdered than to be the killer and be tortured by guilt. It was at that moment the queen has thoughts of suicide. Eventually the guilt completely consumes her and she is no longer to function properly. When she is brought to go see a doctor, she exclaims while sleepwalking : “The thane of Fife had a wife: where is she now? / What, will these hands ne'er be clean?--No more o' / that, my lord, no more o' that: you mar all /with

In the poem “Fury,” by Lucille Clifton, told a story about Lucille's mother who also wrote poetry even though she was uneducated. Her mother was asked to publish some of her poems in a book, but because of the arrow she live in (men were more dominant in society) Lucille's father would not let her publish her poems. In the poem it state “wife” by being an obedient wife, Lucille’s mother decided to sacrifice and give up the poems that she cherish so much by burning them in the furnace. Her “clutching hands, animal-like eyes, and her crying”, show how against she was to throwing away her work.

Sophocles and Shakespeare created two of literature's most famous heroines Antigone and Juliet. These young woman are similar in some respects and differ in important ways. Both Antigone and Juliet is in conflict with older relatives. Antigone defies Creon because he denies burial for her slain brother similiarly Juliet defies her parents by marrying Romeo. In both plays the heroine chooses death by suicide.

X established a tone of gratitude for books. X stated in the essay, “In fact, up to then, I never had been so truly free in my life” (X,11). In this sentence, “truly”, “in my life” showed his gratitude for books, also made the readers realize that the books really set him free, he appreciated the books. The tone was sincere. Another example in the text: “I never will forget how shocked I was when I began reading about slavery’s total horror” (X,26) showed his shameful and angry tone for slavery history.

Although Lennie is accused of being the cause of Curley’s wife’s death, the dialogue between these two characters in chapter five shows Curley’s wife is equally to blame. The reader can see in this chapter, Lennie tried very hard to get rid of Curley’s wife because he knew she would cause him trouble. The book states, “Lennie glared at her. ‘ George says I ain’t to have nothing to do with you-talk to you or nothing.’”

Kate Chopin is a feminist author who lived from 1850 to 1904, but she did not start her career until the death of her husband. Kate Chopin pieces of work focused on the females going against societal norms and taking charge of their own life. The Story of an Hour explores the thought process of a newly widowed wife as she begins to understand the full consequences of her husband's death, which means a new found freedom, but she has it taken away in the end. The Story of an Hour is a feminist response to the confines of marriage because it challenges the unequal power relations between husband and wife. I will be discussing the concepts of identity, free will, and material possession that appear in the Story of an Hour.

The Awakening written by Kate Chopin, is a novella about a woman named Edna, who desires to be an independent woman and break free from the typical 1800’s mold of society. Allusions are used to show how the characters behave and are affected by their surroundings and emotions. Throughout the story, Chopin uses them to connect the characters to the plot and make each scenario recognizable to the reader. “The foamy wavelets curled up to her white feet, and coiled like serpents about her ankles. She walked out.

“A green and yellow parrot, which hung in a cage outside the door, kept repeating over and over” (Chopin, 1) Symbol- the parrot’s noise Foreshadowing Chopin uses the motif of birds in her novel such as at the beginning to introduce the ideas of freedom and being caged in order to tie them into her female characters. “When she heard it there became before her imagination the figure of a man standing beside a desolate rock on the seashore. He was naked. His attitude was one of hopeless resignation as he looked toward a distant bird winging its flight away from him.”

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.