The Awakening Essay Research Paper The AwakeningA

The Awakening Essay, Research Paper

The Awakening

A DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS OF

HOW KATE CHOPIN USES SYMBOLS TO SIGNAL THE READER OF EDNA’S COMING SUICIDE IN THE AWAKENING

WORKS CITED

Chopin, Kate, “Works Of Kate Chopin,: The Plot And Themes

Of “The Awakening,” pub. 1963, Bureau Development

Inc., Parsippany, NJ., pp. 8, pp. 11

Chopin, Kate, “The Awakening,” pub. 1992 World Class

Library, Novato, California, Preface.

Thorton, Lawrence, “Edna As Icarus: A Mythic Issue,”

Approaches To Teaching Chopin’s “The Awakening”

(ed.) Bernard Koloski, New York: MLA 1988, pp. 138

Peters, James N., Kay, Pat R., Evans, Steven B., Rogers,

Z., Thomas, “A Compendium Of Themes And Works

of American Literary Authors,” pub. 1993, World

Class Library, Novato, Cal. pp. 39

When Kate Chopin’s “The Awakening” was published at the

end of the 19th Century, many reviewers took issue with what they

perceived to be the author’s defiance of Victorian proprieties,

but it is this very defiance with which has been responsible for

the revival in the interest of the novel today. This factor is

borne out by Chopin’s own words throughout her Preface — where

she indicates that women were not recipients of equal treatment.

(Chopin, Preface ) Edna takes her own life at the book’s end, not

because of remorse over having committed adultery but because she

can no longer struggle against the social conventions which deny

her fulfillment as a person and as a woman. Like Kate Chopin

herself, Edna is an artist and a woman of sensitivity who

believes that her identity as a woman involves more than being a

wife and mother. It is this very type of independent thinking

which was viewed as heretical in a society which sought to deny

women any meaningful participation.

The fact that Edna is an artist is significant, insofar

as it allows her to have a sensibility as developed as the

author’s. Furthermore, Edna is able to find in Mlle. Reisz, who

has established herself as a musician, a role model who inspires

her in her efforts at independence. Mlle. Reisz, in confiding to

Edna that “You are the only one worth playing for,” gives

evidence of the common bond which the two of them feel as women

whose sensibilities are significantly different from those of the

common herd.

The French heritage which Edna absorbed through her

Creole upbringing allowed her, like Kate Chopin herself, to have

knowledge or a way of life that represented a challenge to

dominant Victorian conventions. In Creole society, women are

dominated by men, but at least the freer attitude toward

sexuality allows a woman opportunities for romance which are

lacking in Anglo-Saxon culture. But sexual freedom is of little

interest to Edna unless it can be used as a means of asserting

her overall freedom as a human being. Learning to swim is thus

important to her, because it allows her to have more control over

the circumstances of her own life through the overcoming of the

dread of water and the fear of death which it symbolizes. Again,

the process through which Edna attains liberation and, in the

author’s words, begins to “do as she likes and to feel as she

likes,” is a gradual one. From statements such as “women who

idolized their children, worshipped their husbands, and esteemed

it a holy privilege to efface themselves as individuals and grow

wings as ministering angels,” it should be obvious why “The

Awakening” was viewed by some critics of the day as offensive to

prevailing conventions and mores. When Edna finally resolved to

end her life it is not because she has been rejected by Robert

but because she can no longer lead the type authentic life which

to her is the only life worth living, and this is the result of

the denial of equal rights to women by the society of that day.

Chopin has clearly taken care to anticipate criticisms that her

suicide would leave the children motherless by having her

recently visit the children to find that they really had no need

of her and are perfectly content with the grandmother. In having

Edna reflect that “she would never sacrifice herself for her

children,” Chopin was not arguing so much in defense of selfish-

ness as against the view that a mother could be expected to deny

her own freedom for the sake the children in a manner that was

not expected of the father. Thus, women’s struggle is synonymous

with Edna’s suicide as well as the events leading up to it.

Edna plays a significant role in this story. Overall, I

personally construed K. Chopin’s novel as a repudiation of

prevailing mores which govern women’s behavior during that period

in time. Edna was an outsider. She did not comprehend that the

personal freedoms she saw all about her were well defined within

Внимание, отключите Adblock

Вы посетили наш сайт со включенным блокировщиком рекламы!
Ссылка для скачивания станет доступной сразу после отключения Adblock!

Скачать