Rebellion In Kate Chopin's The Awakening

Her attempts at tricking the inspector falls short as her own sister and her husband deny her pursuit and disdain her. “…women get strange ideas at times…she is a dangerous and shameless woman” (73). This statement about Aunt Harriet by Joseph Strorm is a prime example of how women are expected to remain detached and dispassionate about their personal, emotional struggles and have no intervention about how she is placed in

Elizabeth Cary’s The Tragedy of Mariam makes many valid points about women’s identities in marriage. Mariam’s choices throughout the play reflect her understanding of the fact that in the world she lives there is no space for a chaste, honest, independent woman. The standards that a woman of the time are impossible and Mariam’s attempts to grapple with them are doomed to fail. After experiencing the freedom of self expression afforded to her after she believes her husband has died she is unwilling to re-enter the position of a subordinate. Mariam is aware the death is the only way to maintain the self she has created.

Despite representing Sethe’s life after slavery, Sethe’s inability to both forgive and release herself from her guilt sees her desperate attempts to veil it with a love for Denver that Paul D claims is “too thick” (Morrison, 2007: 203). Memories of her dead daughter are thus both an implement of healing and a tool of masochism. Sethe’s forces her into a kind of stasis; an interloper that prevents her from moving on from her haunted past. But, unlike her mother, eventually “Denver prevents the past from trespassing on her life” (Ayadi, 2011: 266) and becomes a transformed female figure. With the introduction of a long-lost friend of Sethe’s from her days at the slave yard, Sweet Home, Paul D at first appears to be the liberator of Sethe from the shackles of her actions and the heavy weight of not only her child’s death.

Hailey Hudson 2 January, 2018 AP Lit and Comp Mrs. Schroder An Analysis of Alienation in The Awakening In Kate Chopin’s classic novella The Awakening, the development of Edna Pontellier serves to shine a light on the strict societal morals, values, and gender roles of the late 1800s. Edna is an outsider in nearly every sense of the word, and as the story progresses, she begins to accept this part of her and take her search for fulfillment to an entirely new level. The fallout from these actions, the rifts opened between her and those closest to her in life, ultimately proves too arduous, and leads to her death. Chopin explains to the reader at the very beginning of the novella that Edna has experience standing on the outside, even in subtle ways. For example, her whole life is submerged in Creole culture; however, she married into it, as opposed to being born into it like her friends, acquaintances, and husband.

While there, Edna begins learning to swim, and as she learns to control the water she in turn discovers that she has agency over her own body. When she comes back from the island, this new outlook on life clashes with her husband’s old world values, and he endeavors to stop what he sees as utter madness. At one point, a family doctor recommends to Léonce that Edna spend time at her ancestral home, far away from the water, to return her behavior to what he knows as normal. Edna expresses a dislike of and actively avoids certain parts of society, but cannot fully separate herself from the motherly duties forced onto her by traditional gender roles, unlike her muse Mademoiselle Reisz. These duties, ultimately, prove to be the fetters that cause Edna to sink downward, and lead her to end her life in the same ocean where it truly

For example she feels free when she swims for the first time. The sea is where she discovers her independence for the first time and it is described thusly: “The voice of the sea is seductive, never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander in abysses of solitude.” Whenever she talks about her feelings, she meets resistance from those close to her, especially her husband. When she sets out on her own, she realizes that ideas do not dictate reality and she cannot have a self sufficient existence as she

Eliot’s characterisation of the novel’s heroine, as dark and rebellious, unlike Charlotte Bronte’s reserved Jane Eyre, evidently becomes one of the leading factors in her tragic death. Although Eliot contested feminism in her time, claiming to be “a daughter of the fathers” (Mitchell 14), her novels nonetheless strive to give a realistic depiction of social outsiders and small town persecution .Rather than creating “silly novels by lady novelists [who] rarely introduce us into any other than very lofty and fashionable society” (Eliot 1856), Eliot challenges the representations of dark women in traditional English society, much like a late Jean Rhys in Wide Sargasso Sea, detailing their hardships and unpleasant endings. Therefore, in analysing what Philip terms as Maggie’s “long suicide” (Eliot 429), I aim to uncover the years of societal abuse dark women endured in European society,

It does not matter how slowly you go, as long as you do not stop,” a quote Confucius once wrote. The meaning behind this quote is found within Sylvia Plath’s award winning novel, The Bell Jar. The main character within Plath’s novel is on a journey to find herself and heal her mind,. Esther Greenwood suffers from a mental illness, depression, and is struggling to find “happiness. Symbolism is heavily used throughout Plath’s novel to emphasize a greater meaning behind Esther’s mental illness.

Among all the characters in this story, there is one that some readers wish they knew more about: Ms. Myrtle Wilson. Though she was one of the most essential characters in this book, there seems to be little known about Mrs.Wilson. In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald presents Myrtle Wilson as a selfish woman who lacks morals and does not care how her actions affect others, when in reality, she just wanted to fit in and feel important. Myrtle Wilson is the wife of George Wilson, the car repairman in the low-class region between West Egg and New York; she is also Tom Buchanan’s mistress. Fitzgerald first describes Myrtle as having a “thickish figure,” “faintly stout,” and explains that her face “contained no facet or gleam of beauty,” but her actions and personality make up for her lack of physical perfection (Fitzgerald 25).

Kate Chopin’s The Awakening is a piece of fiction written in the nineteenth century. The protagonist Edna is a controversial character, Edna rebels against many nineteenth - century traditions, but her close friend Adele was a perfect example in terms of a role of a woman, mother and wife at that time. Chopin uses contrast characters to highlight the difference between Adele and Edna. Although they are both married women in the nineteenth century, they also exhibit many different views about what a mother role should be. Edna Pontellier is not Creole, she was born in Kentucky.

At the end of the story the woman says to herself, “I was right not to be afraid of any thief but myself, who will end by leaving me nothing”(Porter 110). This woman can’t find it within herself to blame the changing world for the outcome of the situation so instead turns the whole problem on herself and convinces herself it is her fault. This is Porter puncturing the outer layer of the average human and investigating the darker side that we all have inside of us which was new for this time period. In all of Katherine Anne Porter’s pieces of literature an essence of disillusionment is present. This can be explained by her upbringing and things she has experienced throughout her life.