The Awakening by Kate Chopin
Title
The Awakening is related to Edna’s internal awakening that she has over the period of the book
The Awakening was originally titled The Solitary Soul
Setting New Orleans and The Grand Isle
Genre Spiritual / artistic realization, romantic style
Historical Information
Kate Chopin 1850-1904
Father was Irish, Mother was French-American
Bilingual- spoke both French and English
Grew up in St.Louis Missouri
Developed a passion for music at a young age
Met and married Oscar Chopin
Themes
Identity: Edna suffers a sort of identity crisis throughout the novel. She no longer wants to be the perfect “mother woman” and decides to try and find her independence
Repression and woman / femininity: I feel like these two are
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Pontellier, "she hasn't been associating with any one. She has abandoned her Tuesdays at home, has thrown over all her acquaintances, and goes tramping about by herself, moping in the street-cars, getting in after dark. I tell you she's peculiar. I don't like it; I feel a little worried over it."
“In short, Mrs. Pontellier was not a mother-woman.“
Symbols
Brids
The parrot in the beginning and the mockingbird are symbolic of communication (between Edna and Reisz) and the birds ability to understand each other
Edna moves out of her house with Leonce into the pigeon house as a way to gain more freedom
Reisz tells Edna if she wants to fly she will need strong wings, or else she will plummet to the ground
The Sea
The ocean is a symbol for freedom and escape
Edna learns to swim for the first time which is one of the first steps toward her desire for independence then she also decides to end her life in the ocean, a place / thing that is completely free
Music
The piano playing of Reisz and Adele symbolize both of these women's roles in the novel. Reisz plays gorgeously and flowingly with strong emotion, that hits Edna, representing her freedom while Adele plays very technically correct, representing her role as the perfect “mother
“They were women who idolized their children, worshipped their husbands, and esteemed it a holy privilege to efface themselves as individuals to grow wings as ministering angels” (Chopin 8). Mr. Pontellier did not want her to recognize herself as a person, he wanted her to live only for him and his children as a devoted mother-woman should. Returning back home to New Orleans was met with constant fighting because of Edna’s new determination to become her own person. “Mr. Pontellier had been a rather courteous husband so long as he met a certain tact submissiveness in his life. But her
In the beginning, two parrots hang outside in a cage, trapped. The birds are representative of Edna and it shows how, from the beginning, she is trapped by society and held back from living her life to its fullest potential. Edna is disregarded by society because she is only seen as a wife and a mother, just like how the birds are only seen as SOMETHING. Edna feels neglected as a human being until she meets Robert, a man with who she develops romantic interests in. Roberts helps Edna combat her feelings of despair until he ultimately leaves because of the chemistry between them.
This demonstrates Edna’s craving for freedom and equality that is growing ever since her swim. “Edna spent an hour or two in looking over some of her old sketches. She could see their short-comings and defects, which were glaring in her eyes.” (Chopin, 58) Personification- the paintings and sketches Chopin uses Edna’s sketches and personifies them to exhibit their role as a symbol of Edna’s inner growth.
Adele has her sewing and Madame Reisz has her piano playing. One day, Edna agrees to go swimming with Robert. This experience awakens something inside her. She realizes swimming in the sea is some kind of escape for her. She can forget about all her responsibilities as a wife and a mother for a little while and just focus on herself.
Her frequent vacations to the island, like her frequent dips into the ocean, begin to spark a personal change within the woman. A Creole man, Robert, shows Edna a new dimension of feelings she never knew she lived without, and she begins to look through life through a new lens. Having been awakened for the first time, she sees injustice and mistreatment where she saw none before. Chopin uses Edna’s new observations and reactions to the culture around her to illustrate the myriad ways women were marginalized. In an ironic twist, the white woman from Kentucky proves to be more liberated than her more traditional husband, who grew up
Edna Pontellier’s attitude toward motherhood is that she is not a perfect mother-women for many ways. Edna Pontellier is not a perfect mother because “Mrs. Pontellier was not a mother-women”(Chopin, 10). This quote means that Edna Pontellier is not a good mother/wife because she is not that of a women who would worship their children ,and their husband. Edna Pontellier is not a good mother because “I would give up the
The author uses a comparison and contrast between Madame Ratignolle and Edna Pontellier to show how these two ladies are different from one another. Chopin emphasizes how feminine Madame Ratignolle is to demonstrate how Edna seems to be an outcast from the Creole society. Chopin chooses to incorporate the appearance of the two ladies to support the fact that Edna feels like she does not fit in, especially when Leonce refers to Madame Ratignolle in some parts of the novel. How Conventionality is Being Challenged “She was blindly following whatever impulse moved her, as if she had placed herself in alien hands for direction, and freed her soul of responsibility.”
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.
Lèonce Pontellier In The Awakening In Kate Chopin’s novella, The Awakening, Léonce Pontellier, Edna Pontellier, and their children spend the summer in La Grand Isle. Grand Isle is a town in Louisiana, populated with Creole families. Not able to meet the Creole social standards and be true to herself, Edna, with the help of her husband, becomes aware that she is meant to be an independant woman. Lèonce’s high focus on his image and business makes it hard for him to see his wife's process of self-discovery, he becomes apathetic and can even be ill- tempered towards Edna.
Edna experiences the hardships of striving to break as a “ [feeling] like one who awakens gradually out of a dream, a delicious, grotesque, impossible dream, to feel again the realities pressing into her soul … the exuberance which had sustained and exalted her spirit left her helpless and yielding to the conditions which crowded her in … clutching feebly at the post before passing into the house.” (79). Through the imagery of a weight on her mind and feeble body, Chopin conveys her inability to find the strength to break the chains of the archetypal female identity. Extremely fleeting, her momentary empowerment clearly validates her circular growth rather than a building of personal development.
Because she was drugged during the delivery of both her sons, Edna never truly experienced childbirth. She didn’t realize the overwhelming natural force of bringing a child into the world. When she witnesses the birth of Adele’s child, it is brought to her attention that the female body is designed for childbirth, and she has already committed herself to this purpose by becoming a mother. Her mindset is all wrong for a mother, she sees children as just one more life to populate the world, yet nature has decided that this is her purpose in the world. Edna’s realization about her natural position of woman and mother in combination with the societal position she’s expected to fill drives her to suicide.
However, the conformity of society leads to her suicide because it holds her back from finding her true identity. As Edna listens to Madammoiselle Reisz play the piano, “the very passions themselves were aroused within her soul, swaying it, lashing it, as the waves daily beat upon her splendid body” (Chopin 23). Because the society she lives in is so rarely met with the opportunity for woman to express themselves, this unique experience of listening to her friend’s music leaves Edna in awe. This is the first instance where Edna experiences a need to develop her own identity.
In the book The Awakening by Kate Chopin, symbols play a big role in bringing out the theme of Edna Pontellier’s awakening. One specific symbol defines Edna’s journey which is the bird symbol. Edna, including all the women in her time are trapped by the constraints placed upon them by a male-dominant society. But Edna is the only one who decides to live life as she pleases following her whims and not living under someone’s demands. Edna represents the birds because she thinks she is free, but birds get trapped, just like how Edna gets trapped in having to follow social norms.
In Kate Chopin’ s novel, The Awakening, there are three identities inside of the female leading role, Edna Pontellier, being a wife, mother and own self. Edna was born in 19th century at the Vitoria period, a patriarchy society, women have low freedom to achieve personal goal. She married with Léonce Pontellier, a wealthy man with Creole descent. After having a child, her life is still unchangeable and as bored as before. Until she encountered Robert Leburn, Mademoiselle Reisz, and Alcée Arobin, her value of self-cognition has changed.
Kate Chopin’s The Awakening was written at the end of the nineteenth century, where many roles for women began to change; therefore, the it appears to have been a turning point for females (“The Role of the Wife and Mother”). These changes in female roles were mostly due to the actions of women themselves, motivated by their desires to break away from the limits imposed on their gender The nineteenth century was a critical point in time for women, in regards to their roles in society (“The Role of the Wife and Mother”). In The Awakening, Edna goes through noteworthy changes in the course of the novel, which reconstructs her into a woman who goes against societal ideals regarding motherhood and marriage . In the 1890s, motherhood was viewed