Preview

Edna's Role In The Awakening By Kate Chopin

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
315 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Edna's Role In The Awakening By Kate Chopin
To me, Edna does not fit the conventional role of a woman during the 19th century. She does not epitomize the “Mother-women” character that she is suppose to be and although she loves her children dearly, she would never sacrifice her identity and worth for them, “I would give up the unessential; I would give my money, I would give my life for my children; but I wouldn’t give myself” (Chopin). In the beginning of the novella she would some what listen to her husband command, but as her awakening progress, she starts to become more disobedient and at some point flat out abandon her husband request to stay at home and receive callers on Tuesday. She starts to pursue her interest in painting which leads her to neglect her motherly and wifely duties.
Continue Reading
View Writing Issues

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    A Character Analysis Of Edna Pontellier's The Awakening
    • 424 Words
    • 2 Pages

    A Character Analysis Of Edna Pontellier's The Awakening

    The book, The Awakening explains about a woman true wish to find her inner self. As the journey to find herself becomes an issue among friends and family. While she battles the stereotypical standard of woman during the time in the 1890s. The main character whom is Edna Pontellier's, is a wife that lives a life of luxury. In a Creole society that is upper-class that she’s lives with her husband and two sons. As the story takes off in Grand Isle, as the family is vacationing for the summer. The summer that begins Edna's process of "awakening" and self-identify that soon lead to a selfish decision.…

    • 424 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Change In Edna Pontellier's The Awakening
    • 143 Words
    • 1 Page

    Change In Edna Pontellier's The Awakening

    In the novel The Awakening, the main protagonist Edna represents the character that undergoes change, and has the awakening as referred to in the title. In the first section of the novel, Edna is unsure of her thoughts and actions regarding marriage, her role in the world, and her life in general. In chapter 6, she has an awakening, shown when the narrator announces, “A certain light was beginning to dawn dimly within her, - the light which, showing the way, forbids it” (17). This quote illustrates a major theme in Edna’s life and in the novel, which is change. After chapter 6, the reader and Edna both realize Edna is dissatisfied with her marriage and the limited, conservative lifestyle it allows. This idea is amplified thoroughly later in…

    • 143 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Edna's Quotes From 'The Awakening'
    • 220 Words
    • 1 Page

    Edna's Quotes From 'The Awakening'

    This quote from Edna makes me think she felt astray from herself for a long time. In the first sentence, Edna states she’s easily able to give everything else to her children. The unessential, and money, yet the one thing she declines to give is herself. Usually a mother would want to give everything plus the whole world to their child, however the last sentence displays Edna’s desperateness to finally get a grasp at what she has been missing for a long time. Edna’s character from the beginning of the story seemed as if she was unhappy, so it’s of no surprise.…

    • 220 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Edna's First Awakening Analysis
    • 230 Words
    • 1 Page

    Edna's First Awakening Analysis

    Edna’s first awaking happens in response to her being around people of Cajun descent who openly communicate and touch. While spending time on the beach with a Cajun women Edna is touched, this touch is not in a sexual way, but is outside the norm and starts Edna’s journey towards what she will accept versus what is socially acceptable. Edna says that mother-women “created the embodiment of every womanly grace and charm” {Baym 567). Edna does not consider herself to be a motherly-women. Edna’s second awakening occurs when she pushes the bounds of her immortality by swimming out farther than she thought that she could, but still makes it back to shore. This leads her to try new thing even to the point of speaking back to her husband. To speak…

    • 230 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    APAwakeningEssayStudentThesis 1
    • 1309 Words
    • 4 Pages

    APAwakeningEssayStudentThesis 1

    Edna was not going to sacrifice herself or her happiness anymore for others. Not for her husband, her children, her fellow friends: Madame Lebrun and Madame Ratignolle, or even the love of her life, Robert. She loved herself too much and felt herself too important to stay confined to a role that didn’t fit who she was as a person. Edna came to this realization through a series of different experiences: her relationship with Robert, her friendship with Mademoiselle Reisz, and her developing artistic ability for painting. Edna realized that she couldn’t be herself and be happy, and still “remember the children.” She no longer wanted to be possessed mind, body, and soul. In the end, she would only be sad, alone, frustrated, and unhappy. So she came to the realization that she had to kill herself and accepted that fact.…

    • 1309 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Psychological Journey And Gender Issues In Kate Chopin's The Awakening
    • 143 Words
    • 1 Page

    Psychological Journey And Gender Issues In Kate Chopin's The Awakening

    In Kate Chopin’s “The Awakening” Kate explores a depressed high class woman’s psychological journey and gender issues towards enlightenment and end up committing suicide as she couldn’t open up herself to anybody who could help her in the situation she was going through. The position of women in society in 19th society was limited to household activities, taking care of children, and work according to the husband to please him all the time. Edna, who is self-aware and she wants to live her life in her own way rather than dancing on tunes of her husband to fulfil his desires. The Awakening supports women to obtain independence physically, emotionally, and financially which was impossible for the women of 19th century.…

    • 143 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Edna's Dereliction Of Duty In The Awakening
    • 163 Words
    • 1 Page

    Edna's Dereliction Of Duty In The Awakening

    During their talk in chapter 7, Edna also tells Adele something about her feelings for her children. Edna loves her children but feels weighed down with a responsibility that is suited to her nature. She feels relief when they are away. Edna is not a “mother-woman” like the women that surround her on the island, and their children, when they fall over and hurt themselves, do not rush to her as other women's children do, but they merely pick themselves up and carry on playing. Although Mr. Pontellier is therefore not able to point the finger towards any definite dereliction of duty as a mother, the way that Edna is obviously so different from the other mothers with them that summer highlights that she has a very different kind of relationship…

    • 163 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Summary Of Kate Chopin's The Awakening
    • 551 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Summary Of Kate Chopin's The Awakening

    The expectations of tradition coupled with the limitations of law gave women of the late 1800s very few opportunities for individual expression, not to mention independence. Expected to perform their domestic duties and care for the health and happiness of their families, Victorian women were prevented from seeking the satisfaction of their own wants and needs (SparkNotes Editors). This book is started as Edna, her husband, and their two small boys been in a vacation on Grand Isle, in a resort that was managed by Madame Lebrun, and her sons Robert and Victor. But basically it’s really only Edna and her two sons since her husband Leonce, which is a very successful businessman, works in the city during the week and joins them only on weekends. So Edna mostly spends much of her time with her friend, Adele, but eventually begins seeing Robert Lebrun more and more frequently. But later she founds out that his leaving for mexico the next day and he has yet not told her and she got devastated after finding out this news by herself . When Edna and her family returns to New Orleans after the summer , she begins moving more and more away from her traditional role, as she attempts to live life on her own terms.…

    • 551 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Edna Pontellier In Kate Chopin's The Awakening
    • 413 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Edna Pontellier In Kate Chopin's The Awakening

    “She had resolved never to take another step backward”(). The definition of ‘power’ can be described as the ability or capability to direct or influence the behavior of others. Edna Pontellier, a character in Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, is one woman who constantly struggled and achieved her desire to free herself from the power of 19th century societal views of women. As a result of steady ambitious behaviour and recognition of the closed off thinking of 1800’s civilians, Mrs. Pontellier was able to become the woman she knew she was meant to be.…

    • 413 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Edna Pontellier's Role In The Awakening
    • 884 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Edna Pontellier's Role In The Awakening

    In the novel The Awakening by Kate Chopin, the gender role of Edna Pontellier who is portrayed as a wife and a mother is unacceptable in the nineteenth century. She played her role as a mother and wife in a negative image of the women in this century. The view towards women in the nineteenth century is viewed differently from today. Women in the nineteenth century basically perceived themselves as a property to their husbands. Women in this era had little to no rights and were merely seen nothing more than just objects. In the novel The Awakening, Edna contradicts the idea of women not having authority. Edna was not able to commit her love to her husband, show a rebellious freedom by sharing intimate feelings with other men, and failed as…

    • 884 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Edna a Bad or Good Mother?
    • 768 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Edna a Bad or Good Mother?

    Edna is a main character of the Awakening. She not only acknowledge her sexual desire but also has courage to act on them. (from Analysis of Major Characters). She is really respectable woman in Grand Isle. However. When we consider her as a mother, is she a good mother?…

    • 768 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    Suicide In Kate Chopin's The Awakening
    • 1185 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Suicide In Kate Chopin's The Awakening

    All in all, throughout “The Awakening,” Edna learns who she is as a person. By becoming an independent woman who takes risk, she learns she doesn’t need a husband to function throughout society, especially Creole society. From getting into Creole lifestyle, the affairs, and her suicide, I believe Edna was her own biggest influence throughout “The Awakening”. Although, I do believe she learned the repercussion of making risky…

    • 1185 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    The Awakening Foreshadowing Analysis
    • 968 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The Awakening Foreshadowing Analysis

    Edna is a married woman vacationing at her summer home with her family. Edna’s husband conforms to gender stereotypes of this time and is devoted more to his work than to his family, and believes he holds dominance over his wife solely because he is male. In the first chapter of the novel Mr. Pontellier leaves Edna for Klein’s Hotel and doesn’t return for hours. This is the first of many instanced when Edna is isolated from her husband for long periods of time. Edna quickly becomes rebellious toward her husband. In her time alone she realizes that she doesn’t need him and can be perfectly happy on her own. Edna relishes in her first experience of talking back to her husband enjoying the power she suddenly feels over…

    • 968 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    The Awakening Critical Analysis
    • 972 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The Awakening Critical Analysis

    Edna faces this struggle with her husband, Mr. Pontellier because she feels like he controls her. After her first awakening experience, Edna’s husband demands that she come inside and go to bed and it is noted that, “She wondered if her husband had ever spoken to her like that before, and if she had submitted to his command. Of course she had; she remembered that she had. But she could not realize why or how she should have yielded, feeling as she then did.” This realization that her husband used to control her and Edna’s refusal to continue obeying him demarks the first steps she takes toward taking control of her own life. The second prominent example of blatant disregard for her husband’s wishes is when Edna moves into her own house. No longer wishing to live in her husband’s house, she moves to her own as the narrator points out, “The pigeon-house pleased her. It at once assumed the intimate character of a home, while she herself invested it with a charm… Every step which she took toward relieving herself from obligations added to her strength and expansion as an individual.” This validates Edna’s desire to be free from her former life and highlights the fact that she is only able to truly flourish when she is on her own. Sadly, one must be willing to give up relationships in order to fully achieve this sense of…

    • 972 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    The Awakening Vs. Scarlet Letter
    • 1042 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The Awakening Vs. Scarlet Letter

    Both Edna and Hester were mothers and both cared deeply for their children. In spite of this, Edna was sometimes incapable of showing her true care and affection for her children. The other "mother-women"� who surrounded her seemed to put their children as first priority. This was not true of Edna, who appeared more concerned with her own happiness than that of her children.…

    • 1042 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More

Related Topics