Book Review of The Awakening The Awakening is a tremendous novel written by Kate Chopin in 1899. The novel is set in Louisiana and follows the spiritual journey of Edna Pontellier, a twenty-eight-year-old wife and mother living in New Orleans. While in Grand Isle for the summer with her husband, Léonce, and their two children, she finds herself displeased with her marriage and the conventional behavior it demands from her. Edna was very different from the other women residing at Grand Isle that summer. Not only was she a Kentucky Presbyterian rather than a Creole Catholic, but she was not a “mother-woman.” Kate Chopin describes mother-women as “…women who idolized their children, worshiped their husbands, and esteemed it a holy privilege
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In this realization, she discovers her own, true identity and acts on her desires. Robert, knowing that it is wrong of him to be in love with a married woman, leaves Grand Isle in search of a great fortune in Mexico. While Robert is off in Mexico, Edna is back in New Orleans. She dismisses her daily duties and does whatever she feels like doing. She does not want to be tied down to anyone anymore. Edna becomes an independent woman and moves into her own little house down the street while Léonce is in New York for a business trip and the children are staying with her in-laws for an extended amount of time. Although her true love is Robert, she begins an affair with Alcée Arobin, a charming and seductive young man, only to satisfy her physical urges. During this affair, she maintains complete authority of the relationship, never granting him the opportunity to own or have control over …show more content…
Returning from to New Orleans from Mexico, Robert comes across Edna at Mademoiselle Reisz’s apartment. A few days later, while she is confessing her love for him, she is called upon by Adèle’s servant to go to her sick friend. She asks Robert to stay at her house and wait for her to return, he begs her not to leave and to stay there with him. Edna leaves him there, sitting on the couch, and heads off to Adèle Ratignolle’s home to be there for her friend that is about to give birth. When she returns to her little house, she finds that Robert has left and the house is empty. She finds the small note that he left for her under the light of the lamp that says “I love you. Good-by—because I love you” (Chopin, 93). Edna, distraught over Robert leaving, goes to Grand Isle the next day and commits suicide. She does not take her own life because Robert left her, she takes her own life because she cannot go back to being controlled by any man just for the sake of her children. This confirms what she told Adèle, that she “…would give up the unessential; I would give my money, I would give my life for my children; but I wouldn’t give myself” (Chopin,
In this realization, she discovers her own, true identity and acts on her desires. Robert, knowing that it is wrong of him to be in love with a married woman, leaves Grand Isle in search of a great fortune in Mexico. While Robert is off in Mexico, Edna is back in New Orleans. She dismisses her daily duties and does whatever she feels like doing. She does not want to be tied down to anyone anymore. Edna becomes an independent woman and moves into her own little house down the street while Léonce is in New York for a business trip and the children are staying with her in-laws for an extended amount of time. Although her true love is Robert, she begins an affair with Alcée Arobin, a charming and seductive young man, only to satisfy her physical urges. During this affair, she maintains complete authority of the relationship, never granting him the opportunity to own or have control over …show more content…
Returning from to New Orleans from Mexico, Robert comes across Edna at Mademoiselle Reisz’s apartment. A few days later, while she is confessing her love for him, she is called upon by Adèle’s servant to go to her sick friend. She asks Robert to stay at her house and wait for her to return, he begs her not to leave and to stay there with him. Edna leaves him there, sitting on the couch, and heads off to Adèle Ratignolle’s home to be there for her friend that is about to give birth. When she returns to her little house, she finds that Robert has left and the house is empty. She finds the small note that he left for her under the light of the lamp that says “I love you. Good-by—because I love you” (Chopin, 93). Edna, distraught over Robert leaving, goes to Grand Isle the next day and commits suicide. She does not take her own life because Robert left her, she takes her own life because she cannot go back to being controlled by any man just for the sake of her children. This confirms what she told Adèle, that she “…would give up the unessential; I would give my money, I would give my life for my children; but I wouldn’t give myself” (Chopin,