Essay Comparing The Awakening And The Poisonwood Bible

Both The Awakening and The Poisonwood Bible hold many themes that are similar and events that correlate to one another. In The Awakening, Edna is unhappy in her marriage, feeling like she is the only one who ever does anything around the house while her husband goes to work and does little around the house. In The Poisonwood Bible, Orleanna has the feelings of regret in even marrying Nathan as he becomes very hard headed after the war. Orleanna feels like her husband just does not care anymore about her or their family that they have grown. In the novels The Poisonwood Bible and The Awakening, Kingsolver and Chopin both reveal the hardships and obstacles that those married to someone who believes that they are their superior have to experience and take on, depicting that it comes to the point where you have to stand up for yourself at some point in the marriage. In the beginning of The Poisonwood Bible, Orleanna is seen as timid and afraid of disobeying her husband. She never speaks up for herself or her children in fear of what Nathan …show more content…
The two do differ, however, when it comes to where they view themselves in their family, whether that be inferior or superior. They represent the women who have fought effortlessly in the past for women's rights and equal pay. They represent all of the obstacles that women have had to overcome over the years. They let women know that it is okay to speak your mind, to have a voice. They allow women to see that they do matter and are not stuck behind the shadow of any man in their life. In the novels The Poisonwood Bible and The Awakening, both Kingsolver and Chopin establish the idea that it is okay to have a voice, and to a point a life, that is not controlled or dictated by a man or significant other in a women’s