The Awakening Foreshadowing Analysis
The Awakening
“The only person you will ever have to lean on for the rest of your life is you.”
-Anonymous
Everyone at some point feels loneliness and it is when we are lonely that we truly discover ourselves. The title of Kate Chopin’s novel The Awakening is appropriate and foreshadowing of the protagonist’s journey into self-discovery. Edna Pontellier is forced into self-discovery when she finds herself in solitude throughout the novel. Edna’s husband, children, friends and lovers are scarce leaving Edna to be isolated in her own thoughts.
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 …show more content…
They are spoken of but in an emotional sense not as a physical presence. Very commonly women lose themselves when their lives become stagnant after having children. As it is mentioned in the novel most women are thrown into motherhood and consume themselves with their children. Edna is different. Edna loves her children but says clearly, “I would give up the unessential; I would give up my money, I would give up my life for my children; but I wouldn’t give myself. I can 't make it more clear; it 's only something I can beginning to comprehend, which is revealing itself to me”
“The only person you will ever have to lean on for the rest of your life is you.”
-Anonymous
Everyone at some point feels loneliness and it is when we are lonely that we truly discover ourselves. The title of Kate Chopin’s novel The Awakening is appropriate and foreshadowing of the protagonist’s journey into self-discovery. Edna Pontellier is forced into self-discovery when she finds herself in solitude throughout the novel. Edna’s husband, children, friends and lovers are scarce leaving Edna to be isolated in her own thoughts.
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 …show more content…
They are spoken of but in an emotional sense not as a physical presence. Very commonly women lose themselves when their lives become stagnant after having children. As it is mentioned in the novel most women are thrown into motherhood and consume themselves with their children. Edna is different. Edna loves her children but says clearly, “I would give up the unessential; I would give up my money, I would give up my life for my children; but I wouldn’t give myself. I can 't make it more clear; it 's only something I can beginning to comprehend, which is revealing itself to me”