Alienation In The Awakening

Sarah Umphlett

Mrs. Schroder

AP Literature

2 January 2018

The Awakening Essay - 1995

Abandoned by not only her family but by her community and friends, the character Edna in The Awakening is an excellent example of alienation from society because of her gender through her responses to society 's assumptions and moral values. The reader notices the majority of these differences in Edna’s perception of family verses self and the importance of both. Edna’s alienation from society through her ideas and actions are present in the beginning, middle and end of this book.

At the beginning of the novel Edna presented herself in a semi-conscious way. She acted how she was told to but thought rebellious thoughts. She appeared to others as handsome, graceful,

Edna knew that her duty consisted of becoming a mother-woman but she secretly craved a sexual desire that came with independence and freedom. According to William Acton, “The majority of women (happily for them) are not very much troubled with sexual feelings of any kind” (Hughes, Katheryn). This societal thought and expectation only made Edna’s rebellion to lead to more isolation from those who surrounded her. Society told Edna to remain a mother-woman, even though she never truly felt or acted like one. Adéle, Edna’s neighbor and friend, contrasted with Edna through her mothering abilities as described later by other mothers on the beach, “fluttering about with extended, protecting wings when any harm, real or imaginary, threatened their precious blood… idolizing their children and worshiping their husbands…” (Chopin, Kate). Edna’s husband established her neglect of her children early on in the novel, “He reproached his wife with her inattention, her habitual neglect of the children. If it was not a mother’s

She abandoned the idea of becoming a mother-woman, leaving the children to the inattentive nanny. Robert became more of a parental figure for the children than the children’s parents. When playing with Robert, Edna swam out into the sea where “no woman had swum before.” Upon her return she remembered what was expected of her and scolded herself for splashing about like a child. She had abandoned the social expectation for women to remain composed, proper, and neat. This action spurs new thoughts later on leading to her first verbal rebellion, “she could not realize why or how she should have [ever] yielded to [her husband], feeling as she then did,” after a quarrel with her husband. (The Awakening) Edna continued to isolate herself through her rebellious actions by no longer hosting on Tuesdays because she no longer “felt like it” leaving her husband in distress. It horrified him, he insisted that they could not afford the tarnished reputation as well as any business concerns. Edna did not care about her husband 's rage because she no longer saw the point in catering to his needs, alienating herself from their relationship. Léonce called on the family doctor where he wrote Edna off as stuck in a phase, he suggested sending her back home so her father could reinstall her since of duty to her husband and family. Edna refused to see her family, especially