On the surface Edna seems to have it all, the perfect life as it would be perceived by society. She has two children and a doctor for a husband. However, Edna doesn’t feel as if this completes her; instead, she enters a phase of self-discovery and a sense of finding passion again. Edna is trying to break traditional ties that claim that she should be a good mother-woman. This ultimately leads to her awakening or freedom from the life that she believes restricts her. Edna’s sense of awakening happens in stages with different aspects leading up to the final awakening. Her awakening is a cycle that is completed with many different events synching together to form a better understanding of Edna Pontellier.…
Edna Pontellier is a woman in control of her life. She and her husband, Léonce, have frequent power struggles due to this. When he returns from his business trip and goes to check on their sleeping children, Léonce is convinced that one of them has a fever and needs looking after, but not from him. Léonce tells Edna to go look after her kids, and when she refuses and says that she checked before and they were both fine he starts to reproach her for neglecting her family and not caring about her kids. Edna, finally, finds herself going to the kids’ room just to calm Léonce down; but she never tells him what she did or how the kids were. After this Edna feels: “An indescribable oppression, which seemed to generate in an unfamiliar part of her…
Edna’s independence causes familial tension. Edna’s resistance to her husband’s orders angers Leonce. For example, when Mr. Pontellier learns that Edna did not stay at home for her regular Tuesday reception, he screams and says she had to continue the…
In addition to her sexual awakening, Edna also was determined to remove herself from her traditional occupation as a mother and transfer into something more individualistic such as painting. Although being a painter was not like being a retail clerk or office typist as many other modern women in Edna’s era became, this hobby demonstrates Edna’s dissimilarities from other upper-class mothers during her time. For example, in comparison to Madame Ratignolle who preferred to spend her summers sewing winter clothing for her children, Edna saw no “use of anticipating and making winter night garments” (Chopin). It is this desire to fulfill her own needs that allows Mrs. Pontellier to drop her former motherhood duties and pick up her paint brushes…
6. How do Mlle. Reisz and Mme. Ratignolle function in relation to Edna and the novel's view of women as mothers and artists?…
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…
One of the main struggles of a woman’s role she faces is over motherhood. Edna loves her children, however, she wants to find her identity and she feels her children hold her back. Even her children do not view her as nurturing,…
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…
Characters: Edna Pontellier is a twenty eight year old wife of Léonce Pontellier, a businessman from New Orleans, In the middle of the book Edna finds herself dissatisfied with her marriage and her limited lifestyle, she soon falls in love with her husbands best friend Robert Lebrun which starts trouble with her relationship with her husband and her husband's relationship with Robert. I chose dissatisfied as an adjective to describe Edna because she is not that happy with her wife role and feels disappointed with herself about falling in love with Robert.…
In the awakening, the protagonist, - Edna – sacrifices so much of her desires for her life, children, and societies expectations of a female to the point that shes given up so much that it consumes her life.…
How do Mlle. Reisz and Mme. Ratignolle function in relation to Edna and the novel's view of women as mothers and artists? Because Edna is not strong enough to give up everything for her art, and because she she is too overwhelmed by the demands of society and children, she feels her only escape is suicide.…
The first man that Edna comes in contact with in the novel is her Husband, Mr. Pontellier. The author uses this father and husband figure to create the sense of commitment that comes from love, but nothing else, revealing to Edna the need for more than just commitment. The author creates this sense of commitment on page 7 of “The Awakening” by having Edna be called the “sole object of his existence.”…
In this essay I intend to discuss three aspects of the work. The first will be the subject matter of the painting the second will be the composition and finally the style and colours in which it was painted.…
We are first introduced to the young couple in the beginning of the book. Edna and her friend Adele sit on the beach together and look around at their surroundings. Two young, unnamed lovers sit nearby. They are “exchanging their hearts’ yearnings beneath the children’s tent…” (15). This is the beginning of Edna's awakening. Edna’s husband, Leonce, occasionally shows his love through material gifts, and more than often shows his frustration through anger. During this point on the beach, Edna acknowledges that her marriage was “purely an accident” because it was “not for her in this world,”(18). She is fond of Leonce but feels her marriage has no passion like the young couple. The lovers are passionate, beautiful, and optimistic to the future. They represent the beginning of Edna's relationship with her husband, a vision which did not turn out the way she had hoped. Leonce takes their roles in…
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…