The Awakening is a novella by Kate Chopin about the protagonist’s transformation from a constricted, traditional wife and mother into a free, self-regulating woman. For many years, women have struggled to be seen as equals to the men of the world. Chopin explores how men and society of the 1800s “caged” its women. Throughout the story, Chopin uses imagery of birds and flight to express the yearning for freedom of the entrapped women of the Victorian era. Chopin begins the novella by describing two
The Awakening Transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson once stated, “To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment” (Ralph Waldo Emerson Quote). This quote best applies to the character of Edna Pontellier in Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, as she demonstrates the characteristics of being truly independent by boldly defying the oppressive social expectations placed upon her and her gender during the 1890’s, such as depending solely on
Kate Chopin is well-known writer from the late nineteenth century. She is famous for her novel The Awakening (1899) as well as many short stories, usually written in the setting of the American South, Louisiana region, noticed by her use of dialects. Her works are written in a poetic manner, mainly with a focus on women in her day and the woman in her story’s search for identity and independence. As Chopin was widowed in her early thirties, she raised six children alone, as well as ran her late-husband’s
Edna’s Autonomous Awakening Within Kate Chopin’s The Awakening there is an internal question of not only the autonomy of the female self but of the self as an individual. Jules Chametzky echoes this sentiment in his assessment of “Edna and the ‘Woman Question.’” Both authors, however, suggest that the struggles involved with finding the self or awakening to a higher awareness of that female or individual self. I will discuss these struggles and show that Edna, in choosing her own fate, overcame
Edna Pontellier is on vacation in Grand Isle near New Orleans in the novella The Awakening by Kate Chopin, but she was raised on a farm setting in Kentucky. Edna’s childhood memories reveal to the reader her current interest in independence when the thing that reminds her of her childhood is the “sight of the water stretching so far away… made a delicious picture that [she] just wanted to sit and look at” (24). The yearning diction of “delicious” and “wanted” indicate Edna’s pleasure and desire with