Kate Chopin opens her novella, The Awakening, with a parrot squawking in its birdcage: “The green and yellow parrot, which hung in a cage outside the door, kept repeating over and over: ‘Allez vous-en! Allez vous-en! Sapristi! That’s all right!” (3). Birds are usually utilized to symbolize freedom, but here, Chopin writes of a caged bird. Most birds, such as the parrot, have wings and are meant to fly, not locked in a restricting cage. Similarly, in the late nineteenth century, women were prevented from exercising their full potential. For one, Edna Pontellier, the female protagonist in The Awakening, is treated much like a bird, considered exotic and fragile, and caged in by her attire, her husband, and societal expectations. Although her
…show more content…
Here, Welter uses “True Womanhood” to describe when a woman fulfills the four cardinal virtues, or the requirements of femininity as defined by society. Meanwhile, Edna breaks all four cardinal virtues of True Womanhood. To briefly discuss her piety, in Chapter VII, during a conversation with her companion Madame Adele Ratignolle, Edna mentions that her relationship with her religion is more a force of habit of her Presbyterian upbringing rather than genuine devotion. Next, she also fails to maintain both her emotional purity (through her romantic affair with Robert Lebrun) and her physical purity (through her sexual affair with Aclée Arobin). And her husband, Léonce Pontellier finds fault with both Edna’s housekeeping and mothering; so not only does she fail to meet feminine domesticity, but since she also does not heed her husband’s complaints and criticism, she is unsuccessful at being submissive as well. This will be further addressed later …show more content…
She continues to explain that this confinement is a physical manifestation of a woman’s morals, or to prove that she is a not a “loose woman” (68). In relation to this idea, Bartky also brings up the concept of “self-surveillance,” when one self-consciously observes oneself in order to keep oneself in check (65). For example, women in The Awakening are anticipated to maintain and be conscious about their physical appearance. As a result, the women, like Madame Ratignolle, are illustrated as fully covered from head to toe, which is to protect themselves from the sun in order to fulfill the ideal that women should be white and pale. In the previously mentioned scene, Edna observes herself but is not worried about her darkening complexion nor hesitant about bearing her bare skin in front of a man other than her husband. More importantly, she does not seem to worry about how her lack of coverage might suggest her “loose” morals. Although it seems inconsequential, what she chooses to wear and not to wear reflects Edna’s attitude and lack of interest regarding the femininity appropriate of her
Here, Welter uses “True Womanhood” to describe when a woman fulfills the four cardinal virtues, or the requirements of femininity as defined by society. Meanwhile, Edna breaks all four cardinal virtues of True Womanhood. To briefly discuss her piety, in Chapter VII, during a conversation with her companion Madame Adele Ratignolle, Edna mentions that her relationship with her religion is more a force of habit of her Presbyterian upbringing rather than genuine devotion. Next, she also fails to maintain both her emotional purity (through her romantic affair with Robert Lebrun) and her physical purity (through her sexual affair with Aclée Arobin). And her husband, Léonce Pontellier finds fault with both Edna’s housekeeping and mothering; so not only does she fail to meet feminine domesticity, but since she also does not heed her husband’s complaints and criticism, she is unsuccessful at being submissive as well. This will be further addressed later …show more content…
She continues to explain that this confinement is a physical manifestation of a woman’s morals, or to prove that she is a not a “loose woman” (68). In relation to this idea, Bartky also brings up the concept of “self-surveillance,” when one self-consciously observes oneself in order to keep oneself in check (65). For example, women in The Awakening are anticipated to maintain and be conscious about their physical appearance. As a result, the women, like Madame Ratignolle, are illustrated as fully covered from head to toe, which is to protect themselves from the sun in order to fulfill the ideal that women should be white and pale. In the previously mentioned scene, Edna observes herself but is not worried about her darkening complexion nor hesitant about bearing her bare skin in front of a man other than her husband. More importantly, she does not seem to worry about how her lack of coverage might suggest her “loose” morals. Although it seems inconsequential, what she chooses to wear and not to wear reflects Edna’s attitude and lack of interest regarding the femininity appropriate of her