Title: The Awakening
Author: Kate Chopin
Setting: New Orleans, Louisiana and Grand Isle, Louisiana
Genre: Drama, Romance (to an extent), Feminist Literature
Historical context: Published in 1899. At the time, women’s issues were at the forefront of America. In particular, the setting (Louisiana) was a state that trended towards traditional attitudes (low divorce rate, traditional gender roles).
Theme;
Gender Roles
“If it was not a mother’s place to look after children, whose on earth was it?”
Leonce on child-rearing
Music
“The very first chords which Mademoiselle Reisz struck upon the piano sent a keen tremor down Mrs. Pontellier’s spinal column.” - “But the very passions themselves were aroused within her soul, swaying it, lashing it, as …show more content…
Moments later, she herself is dead, having soared above the plain of tradition and grown tired.
Swimming and the ocean
The ocean represents freedom, and swimming represents obtaining said freedom
Robert tries to teach her how to swim (somewhat unsuccessfully), and she expresses a desire to swim far out into the ocean
She later does exactly this, as a final (and arguably successful) bid to obtain freedom
Motif: Children
Edna is show to be one, in reference to her awakening
She rediscovers the world from a childlike perspective
Ironically, she feels that her own children will have their lives affected by her actions.
This leads her to suicide
Her children are one of her obligations as a woman in her time.
Character Development: Edna
When the novel begins, Edna is a traditional wife, without a particularly rebellious spirit. After a summer at Grand Isle, however, she changes
She devotes herself more to emotional and sensual gratification
Her relationships with Robert (Emotional) and Alcee (sensual) prove this
She begins to break free from her societal obligations, as a …show more content…
Pontellier’s eyes that the damp sleeve of her peignoir no longer served to dry them. She was holding the back of her chair with one hand; her loose sleeve had slipped almost to the shoulder of her uplifted arm. Turning, she thrust her face, steaming and wet, into the bend of her arm, and she went on crying there, not caring any longer to dry her face, her eyes, her arms. She could not have told why she was crying. Such experiences as the foregoing were not uncommon in her married life. They seemed never before to have weighed much against the abundance of her husband’s kindness and a uniform devotion which had come to be tacit and
Author: Kate Chopin
Setting: New Orleans, Louisiana and Grand Isle, Louisiana
Genre: Drama, Romance (to an extent), Feminist Literature
Historical context: Published in 1899. At the time, women’s issues were at the forefront of America. In particular, the setting (Louisiana) was a state that trended towards traditional attitudes (low divorce rate, traditional gender roles).
Theme;
Gender Roles
“If it was not a mother’s place to look after children, whose on earth was it?”
Leonce on child-rearing
Music
“The very first chords which Mademoiselle Reisz struck upon the piano sent a keen tremor down Mrs. Pontellier’s spinal column.” - “But the very passions themselves were aroused within her soul, swaying it, lashing it, as …show more content…
Moments later, she herself is dead, having soared above the plain of tradition and grown tired.
Swimming and the ocean
The ocean represents freedom, and swimming represents obtaining said freedom
Robert tries to teach her how to swim (somewhat unsuccessfully), and she expresses a desire to swim far out into the ocean
She later does exactly this, as a final (and arguably successful) bid to obtain freedom
Motif: Children
Edna is show to be one, in reference to her awakening
She rediscovers the world from a childlike perspective
Ironically, she feels that her own children will have their lives affected by her actions.
This leads her to suicide
Her children are one of her obligations as a woman in her time.
Character Development: Edna
When the novel begins, Edna is a traditional wife, without a particularly rebellious spirit. After a summer at Grand Isle, however, she changes
She devotes herself more to emotional and sensual gratification
Her relationships with Robert (Emotional) and Alcee (sensual) prove this
She begins to break free from her societal obligations, as a …show more content…
Pontellier’s eyes that the damp sleeve of her peignoir no longer served to dry them. She was holding the back of her chair with one hand; her loose sleeve had slipped almost to the shoulder of her uplifted arm. Turning, she thrust her face, steaming and wet, into the bend of her arm, and she went on crying there, not caring any longer to dry her face, her eyes, her arms. She could not have told why she was crying. Such experiences as the foregoing were not uncommon in her married life. They seemed never before to have weighed much against the abundance of her husband’s kindness and a uniform devotion which had come to be tacit and