Awakening Essay

The time period of the 1880s that Kate Chopin lived in influenced her to write The Awakening, a very controversial book because of many new depictions of women introduced in the book. The Awakening is a book about a woman, Edna Pontellier. In the beginning, she is a happy woman with her husband and 2 kids vacationing at Grand Isle. While there, Edna realizes she is in love with Robert Lebrun and that she was just forced into an unloving/dissatisfying marriage with Mr. Pontellier. Robert however

that something bad will happen. In Kate Chopin’s novel The Awakening, society tells Edna Pontellier what she is supposed to do as a woman, and she does this because society tells her to do so, thinking that women who do not are crazy. But then one day she realizes that there is no reason that she should not be an individual, and she is repressed by society because she goes against society’s expectations. The novel’s title, The Awakening, refers to Edna’s realization of society’s expectations of women

Critical Views of The Awakening       The Awakening, written by Kate Chopin, is full of ideas and understanding about human nature. In Chopin's time, writing a story with such great attention to sensual details in both men and women caused skepticism among readers and critics. However, many critics have different views with deeper thought given to The Awakening. Symbolism, the interpretation of Edna's suicide, and awakenings play important roles in the analysis of all critics.   Symbolism

most famous book The Awakening, also her most controversial book, was published in 1899 and was banned because of its controversial portrayal of women and marriage. In The Awakening Chopin utilizes the sea, birds, and houses as symbols in order to critique society’s repressive expectations of women. She includes these symbols to show that society practices are wrong and to show that equality needs to be established for the common good. Throughout the novel The Awakening, Chopin utilizes the sea

them and cause them to lose hope. Kate Chopin uses words like “depressed” (56), “hopeless” (56) and “despondency” (p115) to describe Edna, the heroine, in The Awakening. Coupling this description with Edna taking her life at the end of the novel and Chopin’s own inferred demoralization, due to the almost universal aversion to The Awakening, the natural conclusion is that it is a work of “great personal demoralization”, (Companion 5) as Michael Levenson states. Levenson suggests most modernist authors

Analayzing the novel “The awakening” , the protagonist can be seen in different stages of her life: as a wife, as an artist, as a mother and as a woman. From the beginning, the author gives a fair description of Edna: “She was an American woman, with a smal infusion of French which seemed to have been lost in dilution.” (Chopin, The awakening, pg. 9). As a wife she seems not take care of the households as her husband expect to. He also believes that she does not take good care of their children

Analyzing Chopin’s use of symbolism in “The Awakening” What would one expect to be the personality of a woman, who was raised in a family of no man dominance in the year of 1800? Kate Chopin was born in Missouri, in 1850 and was one of the five children. At very young age, Kate lost her both sisters and her brother. At age of five, Kate was sent to a Catholic school. Not long after leaving her home, Chopin loses her father. Kate is being sent home from school to live with her mother, grandmother

In their analytical papers on The Awakening by Kate Chopin, both Elaine Showalter and Elizabeth Le Blanc speak to the importance of homosocial relationship to Edna’s awakenings. They also share the viewpoint that Edna’s return to the sea in the final scene of the book represents Edna being one with her female lover and finding the fulfillment she has been seeking. We see evidence of this idea of the sea as a feminine from Showalter when she tells us that “As the female body is prone to wetness, blood

Criticism of The Awakening      Reading through all of the different criticism of Kate Chopin’s The Awakening has brought about ideas and revelations that I had never considered during my initial reading of the novel.  When I first read the text, I viewed it as a great work of art to be revered.  However, as I read through all of the passages, I began to examine Chopin’s work more critically and to see the weaknesses and strengths of her novel.  Reading through others' interpretations of her

In Kate Chopin’s novel, The Awakening a wife and a mother of two, Edna Pontellier, discovers her desires as a woman to live life to the fullest extent and to find her true self. Eventually, her discovery leads to friction between friends, family, and the dominant values of society. Through Chopin's use of Author’s craft and literary elements, the readers have a clear comprehension as to what the author is conveying. The writer narrates the novel in third person point of view. Although the story