Contradicting Ideas In The Awakening
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In the novel The Awakening, Kate Chopin uses contradicting ideas and motifs to illustrate how waking up to reality is an emotionally tedious, and often times, life-changing journey. A good example of this occurs when Chopin uses phrases such as “shadowy anguish”, “exceedingly disturbing”, and “forbidding” (12) to describe Edna’s internal awakening. When she acknowledges her newfound desire to become independent, phrases with negative connotations are often used. The repetition of these negative phrases shows how foreboding Edna’s independence could be in a society where women were heavily restricted in their freedoms. Later in the story, when Edna’s plan to commit suicide are well underway, Chopin describes the water as “gleaming with the million