The New Woman was a feminist ideal that emerged in literature in the late nineteenth century and continued to have a profound impact on twentieth century literature. Kate Chopin’s novel, the Awakening, and Virginia Woolf’s novel, To the Lighthouse, contained characters heavily influenced by New Woman ideals. Edna Ponteiller and Lily Briscoe are “unlike the odd woman, celibate, sexually repressed, and easily pitied or patronized as the flotsam and jetsam of the matrimonial tide” (Showalter 38). Both characters challenge their male counterparts, seek independence and autonomy, and cannot be fulfilled by marriage and motherhood. Through the narratives of Edna Ponteiller and Lily Briscoe, Chopin and Woolf accentuate the traits of the New Woman.
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This realization causes her to challenge the authority of men in her life. She begins to exert herself against her husband, Leonce, after coming to the realization that she followed his orders without hesitation or consciousness. When he orders her to come inside after he has returned from his outings to the Klein’s hotel, she stubbornly settles herself in the hammock “with a writhing motion” and begins to contemplate “if her husband had ever spoken to her like that before, and if she had submitted to his command. Of course she had; she remembered she had” (Chopin 32). This is the first instance in the novel that Edna verbally denies her husband; this moment is pivotal in her “awakening,” as she becomes more confident in her desire to do as she pleases in the instances after this …show more content…
Throughout the novel, Edna searches for independence and autonomy in the narrow-minded society she is surround by. She becomes aware of these restrictions when Mr. Pontellier wakes her to take care of the children, even though he is more than capable to do so. In this moment, she starts to feel “an indescribable oppression, which seemed to generate in some unfamiliar part of her consciousness, filled her whole being with a vague anguish” (Chopin 6). This is the first time Edna recognizes the oppressive state of her marriage and the society as a
This realization causes her to challenge the authority of men in her life. She begins to exert herself against her husband, Leonce, after coming to the realization that she followed his orders without hesitation or consciousness. When he orders her to come inside after he has returned from his outings to the Klein’s hotel, she stubbornly settles herself in the hammock “with a writhing motion” and begins to contemplate “if her husband had ever spoken to her like that before, and if she had submitted to his command. Of course she had; she remembered she had” (Chopin 32). This is the first instance in the novel that Edna verbally denies her husband; this moment is pivotal in her “awakening,” as she becomes more confident in her desire to do as she pleases in the instances after this …show more content…
Throughout the novel, Edna searches for independence and autonomy in the narrow-minded society she is surround by. She becomes aware of these restrictions when Mr. Pontellier wakes her to take care of the children, even though he is more than capable to do so. In this moment, she starts to feel “an indescribable oppression, which seemed to generate in some unfamiliar part of her consciousness, filled her whole being with a vague anguish” (Chopin 6). This is the first time Edna recognizes the oppressive state of her marriage and the society as a