Personal Awakening
In “The Awakening”, written by Kate Chopin, Edna Pontellier is the main character, who undergoes an awakening from a dependent woman living to the standards of the society to an independent self-aware individual. Through the regular absence of her husband Léonce Pontellier, Edna cannot speak with him about her thoughts, fears and important scenes in her life. Therefore she remotes herself mentally and even physically from him. But in how far is Leoncé the prime trigger for Edna´s Awakening, how did her Awakening happen exactly and is the suicide consequent in her development ? At the beginning of the novel, Chopin´s main character Edna Pontellier lives the life of a typical woman in the 19th century. Society and her successful husband Léonce …show more content…
In this time she approaches to the Creole women,
“which impressed Mrs. Pontellier most forcibly was their entire absence of prudery. Their freedom of expression was at first incomprehensible to her, though she had no difficulty in reconciling it with a lofty chastity which in the Creole woman seems to be inborn and unmistakable" (Chopin …show more content…
Therefore Edna neglects her roles and duties and moves after returning to New Orleans out into the pigeon house, where she can enjoy “the feeling of freedom and independence” (Chopin 76). She will not be owned by anyone, especially not by her husband, "I am no longer one of Mr. Pontellier’s possessions to dispose of or not. I give myself where I choose" (Chopin 102). From this time Edna dispossess her absolutely from Leoncé, physically and mentally, and he cannot longer control