Freedom In Kate Chopin's The Awakening

Improved Essays
Freedom

"She would not join the groups in their sports and bouts, but intoxicated with her newly conquered power, she swam out alone,"(Chopin 10) Edna's awakening truly begins within the waters when she realizes that she has the strength to surpass the boundaries she has made for herself.
"You have been a very, very foolish boy, wasting your time dreaming of impossible things when you speak of Mr. Pontellier setting me free! I am no longer one of Mr. Pontellier's possessions to dispose of or not. I give myself where I choose. If he were to say, 'Here, Robert, take her and be happy; she is yours,' I should laugh at you both."(Chopin 36) Edna understands that she is no longer a "possession", but a human being, an individual that should be able
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She wanted to destroy something. The crash and clatter were what she wanted to hear."(Chopin 17) Edna is reckless, she rages while alone, she'd behaved with more modesty in the presence of another individual.
"When Doctor Mandelet dined with the Pontelliers on Thursday he could discern in Mrs. Pontellier no trace of that morbid condition which her husband had reported to him. She was excited and in a manner radiant."(Chopin 23) Edna is very polite, she behaves with decency in public.
"Stop!" she cried, "don't sing that. I don't want you to sing it," and she laid her glass so impetuously and blindly upon the table as to shatter it against a carafe.(Chopin 30) We notice that her actions in public and in private begin to intersect later into her awakening, by demonstrating her reckless behavior in front of other people.
I do not believe this story could have ended any other way. Edna was engulfed with love for Robert and in that time period she had no true means of escape from her marriage. Edna, other than having a husband, had two children that she had to bear in mind when making decisions, and she had stated to Madame Ratignolle she'd give the unessential for her children, including her life, but not herself. (Chopin

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