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The Awakening Comparison

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The desire to be independent and free is found within all individuals. Kate Chopin’s novel The Awakening and John Ford’s film The Searchers depict the struggles of their protagonists as they embark on journeys to discover their true selves. The protagonists of these two texts both find themselves fighting to establish a balance between the domestic and the natural world. The domestic world is governed by society and its expectations, whilst the natural world is free of societal expectations and represents the individuality that the protagonists are trying to find. Edna, the protagonist of The Awakening, begins to rebel against societal expectations for her as a mother and wife in favor of independence and freedom. This journey begins in the …show more content…

In this poem, a boy discovers the attractive nature of the ocean. He hears the ocean calling to him, “A word then (for I will conquer it,) …the sea, / Delaying not, hurrying not, / Whisper’d me through the night, and very plainly before daybreak, / Lisp’d to me the low and delicious word death, / And again death, death, death, death” (Whitman, 170-180). The ocean whispers death to the boy, yet he feels as though he can conquer death, and nature itself, so he I not afraid. Though the ocean represents death, it also represents freedom to this boy, and also for Edna. For Edna, death would free her from the expectations that weigh her down, and her soul could finally be free. She summarizes this thought when she says: “‘I would give up the unessential; I would give up my money, I would give my life for my children; but I wouldn’t give myself’” (Chopin, 46). This sentiment is repeated moments before her suicide, because at that point, she truly understands what she means. For her, her body and life is what is tying her down, and because Edna feels as though she can conquer death, for her it is what will give her the true freedom of soul and self that she feels she cannot find in society. For both the boy and Edna, the attractive nature of the sea shows how excessive individualism can be

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