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Freedom In Kate Chopin's Book 'The Awakening'

962 Words4 Pages

Suimay Lee Ms. Meister AP English 3/31/16
Edna Awakens from Freedom
The title of Kate Chopin 's book "The Awakening" concludes on Edna 's character as a whole on how life awakens her. As a feminist role, Edna who is viewed as not being able to do anything, is married to a rich man, and is under circumstances meaning that her lack of power and weaknesses leads to her suicide at the end of the novel. The title of the book "The Awakening" ties in with Edna who acknowledges that she can willingly do anything to overcome herself from a feminist view realizing her independence can get in the way of her view of the world, the love sacrifices she faces, and the difficulties she faces trying to find herself.
Edna is no longer the girl you know. …show more content…

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Edna 's independence throughout the novel shows the view on how a feminist role is. Her husband controls everything "looking at his wife as one looks at a valuable piece of a personal property that suffered from damage" (3) and the major gap between their age indicates that Edna doesn 't have a lot in stock. Her children are her everything but she is not willing to give up herself for them. She keeps herself away from others. Her relationship with Robert truly shows how she is when she 's around him or not. When she 's around him he gives her the "Indescribable oppression, which seemed to generate in some unfamiliar part of her consciousness, [and] filled her whole being with a vague anguish" (8). She feels alive and different when she 's around him. The day she finds out that Robert is leaving to Mexico, she feels upset and down. After he leaves she 's not herself anymore. “For the first time she recognized anew the symptoms of infatuation which she felt incipiently as a child” (59) and without Robert, her further awakening is keeping her independent. To hide everything behind she decides to move out without telling her husband. Her affair with Alcee was a way to hide herself. The affair kept her away from her freedom to being with Robert so she left hi. She hides her feelings away from the people she loves and has no power to say because she 's weak. Her suicide gives the chance of whom she loves the chance of happiness without her. It 's not an act of selfishness but an act of freedom for both

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