Culture In The Awakening

In “Culture,” by Stephen Greenblatt explains that culture is the “beliefs and practices that form a given culture function as a persuasive technology of control, a set of limits… to which individuals must conform.” Some works of art go on to “batter against the boundaries of their own culture to record the voice of the displaced and oppressed.” In The Awakening by Kate Chopin, the protagonist Edna Pontellier does fit into Greenblatt’s definition of culture because she is being oppressed by not only society but by her friends. Therefore, this causes Edna to long for a new life where she can be free to do what she wants, where she doesn’t have to be a perfect woman in society’s eyes. Throughout the book, we are able to see Edna struggle through