Women's Role In The Awakening

The introduction of the birth control pill in 1965 helped women choose between a full-time career and motherhood—or do both. In contrast with the Victorian ideals of women, specifically the devoted motherly role, women in the late Sixties could determine their fate as a mother or a professional as a result of this pill. However, the predominant gender socialization and restrainment the Victorian society imprints upon women is crucial in Kate Chopin’s novel The Awakening. This unjust notion is strongly imposed upon Edna Pontellier, protagonist of the novel. The novel confines her into being the stereotypical housewife and triggers a recalcitrant awakening against society’s norms. The Victorian Era time period in the novella imposes upon women the constricting lifestyle of the mother-woman.

In this Victorian Era in which the story transpires, the dreadful role of the wife is to always attend to her husband’s necessities. In The Awakening’s chapter III, Léonce Pontellier, Edna’s husband, is indignant when he returns to their cottage late at night because he finds Edna asleep instead of patiently waiting until he comes home, like she is supposed to. Since that Edna’s role is to continuously care for his well-being, Monsieur Pontellier is received with the stunning reality that she refuses her task simply because she dislikes the conventional manner of it. When the novel states “His entrance awoke his wife, who was in bed and fast asleep when he came in. …She was overcome with