Edna

68-year-old Edna was never the kind of lady to sit around and knit all day. She’d be more accurately described with words like adventurous, plucky, and impressive. Her live in male nurse, Colin, was a different story. His descriptive words mostly consisted of apprehensive, clumsy, and irritable. He, of course, had every right to be crabby for the wild Edna would constantly be dragging along the poor fellow on one of her many escapades. You’d think these scenarios would be few and far between in…

pristine house, and live to please their husbands by doing everything they said to do. Edna Pontellier, the protagonist, demonstrates the idea of cultural boundaries and going past them a plethora of times in the novel. She desires independence and freedom mostly from societal and cultural norms that burden her with responsibilities she feels she cannot or does not want to fulfill. For example, the narrator states that Edna is not a ‘mother-woman’, or a woman who fully devotes herself to her…

These readings implicitly overlook the courage and discipline of women like Edna who did survive and rise above such pressures, including the very authors of The Awakening and "The Yellow Wallpaper"; both women had families and successful writing careers, endured divorce or a spouse's death, and remained active public figures for most of their lives. Edna, too, succeeds in creating a significant amount of agency for herself after she conies to realize, when she learns to swim, the extent to…

As the crowd makes its way from the party down to the beach, Edna wonders why Robert has distanced himself from her. He no longer accompanies her constantly as he did before, although he doubles his devotion upon his return from an entire day spent away from her. It is as though he feels obligated to spend a certain number of hours with Edna. Most of the beach-goers enter the water without a second thought, but Edna is hesitant. Despite the attempts of the other guests to teach her, she is…

In The Awakening, Edna Pontellier gradually realizes the societal expectation for her to conform to the female stereotype and attempts to discover freedom instead. Rather than live as a “mother-woman” whose entire existence revolves around only her husband and children, she wishes to discover her own person and live as that woman. In the beginning of the book, Mr. Pontellier criticizes his wife and wakes her up so she can tend to their children in the middle of the night and otherwise fit into…

In Kate Chopin’s, The Awakening, Edna Pontellier is the portrayal of a woman who was stuck in an unhappy marriage where the only thing she was good for was to stand as a symbol of her husband’s wealth. This selection speaks to me about the way men portrayed women in the 18th century. The themes expressed are societies view on women, and the search for self-identity, which means that women struggled to have a voice and a life outside of their family and home. The setting of the book is in the…

has an important impact, the birds represent freedom and the ability to fly but are also symbols for something that is powerful, and gentle. Edna has different homes is important because they reflect her changing state of mind. The ocean symbolizes freedom and the represents death as well. In addition, it also represents something that is larger than life. Edna…

How does a person recognize the signs of oppression? As a woman living in the late 1800’s, Edna Pontellier comes to learn the difference between how men and women are treated in regards to sexual desires and exploration. Throughout the book, Edna desperately tries to find herself by pursuing her feelings and passions and is consistently admonished to abide by societal norms but evidently chooses to end her life to get away from it all. In The Awakening, Kate Chopin uses sex and sexism to reveal…

Janie in the Their Eyes Were Watching God and Edna in The Awakening experience a lot of discrimination because of their gender. Janie also experiences racial discrimination, too. In “'The Awakening': A Refusal to Compromise.” by Carley Rees Bogard , the author talks about how Edna Pontellier changed over the course of the novel. Works Cited Bogard, Carley Rees. "'The Awakening': A Refusal to Compromise." The University…

they did it had a huge impact on the way that person was viewed. Rosa Parks stood up for what she believed in, even though society told her not to, much like the protagonist in The Awakening by Kate Chopin. Kate Chopin’s, “The Awakening” focuses on Edna Pontellier as the main protagonist in the story.…