Essays on The Awakening

In Kate Chopin’s novel The Awakening Edna uses painting to mature and awaken. She has always loved painting, however, she has always been unconfident about her skill in painting. As time went on she became more confident with her skills which that helped Edna grow...

Leonce Pontellier, the husband of Edna Pontellier in Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, becomes very perturbed when his wife, in the period of a few months, suddenly drops all of her responsibilities. After she admits that she has “let things go,” he angrily asks, “on account...

An indescribable oppression, which seemed to generate in some unfamiliar part of her consciousness, filled her whole being with a vague anguish. (Chopin, 28) The Awakening portrays a woman caught in the feminine role defined by her society. The real nature of Edna’s problem is...

In the aftermath of the Civil War, many artists and writers were inspired to reject the lofty ideals of romanticism and focus attention on a new movement – one representing aspects of everyday life. American realist authors such as Mark Twain and Charles Chestnutt are...

In The Awakening, by Kate Chopin, unsatisfied Edna longs for something to sweep her off her feet. When it does, in the form of fresh love Robert, Edna realizes that she must choose between her family and her own mind and soul. At this realization,...

In The Awakening, author Kate Chopin offers a tale of self exploration and fulfillment in protagonist Edna, who finds herself at odds with the warped society that is her reality. Taking place primarily in Louisiana islands, the Gulf of Mexico is perhaps, the second most...

A woman sits alone in her empty living room, overtaken by an unbearable ennui. She sits cross-legged, with one elbow propped up on the faded, beige armrest, and the other resting on her thigh. She sighs with exasperation as she patiently awaits her children’s arrival...

Awakening via the Omniscient Narrator In Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, Edna Pontellier transforms from a wealthy product of mid 19th century Creole society into an independent, beautiful soul that acknowledges none of the boundaries of societal code. Her beauty, like the plot, only meets its...

Kate Chopin’s novel, The Awakening, has borne a burden of criticism and speculation since its initial publication. While many past critics have chastised Chopin and condemned the novel for the portrayal of an adulterous heroine, modern responses are often inexorably concerned with drawing conclusions about...

In her novel, The Awakening, Kate Chopin shows Edna Pontellier¹s confrontations with society, her imprisonment in marriage and Edna¹s exploration of her own sexuality. Chopin also portrays Edna as a rebel, who after her experiences at Grand Isle wants to live a full and a...

Edna Pontellier’s domestic situation is nothing out of the ordinary for a wealthy New Orleans family. Her roles as a housewife and a mother exemplify society’s expectations of upper-class women during the Victorian era. Edna’s burning desire to break away from her unhappy marriage and...

Within the School of Myth, many critics have associated Chopin’s Edna Pontellier with the mythical figure Psyche. The Greek word for “psyche” translates as “soul” or “butterfly.” Both words insinuate a change or an awakening. A soul continually learns, morphs, and adapts to its revelations...

In Kate Chopin’s controversial novel “The Awakening”, the protagonist, Mrs. Edna Pontellier, experiences a personal rebirth, becoming an independent, sexual, and feeling woman, shunning the restraints of the oppressive society in which she lives. This awakening happens on Grand Isle, a luxurious island on which...

Much controversy surrounds the ending of Kate Chopin’s The Awakening and for good reason; the novel can be used to support two completely opposing views. On one hand the suicide of Edna Pontellier can be seen as the ultimate culmination of Edna’s awakening as she...

Creating a social sensation when it was introduced in 1899, The Awakening was labeled one of the first feminist novels as it fell into tone with the rapidly rising group of young women who demanded political and social equality. The reader witnesses Edna Pontellier’s transformation...

The final, powerful scene of The Awakening by Kate Chopin provides a fitting end to Edna’s long struggle between expectation and desire. Edna’s traditional role of wife and mother holds her back from her wish to be a free woman. Both the sea and the...

Kate Chopin’s The Awakening and Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn share a number of parallels in terms of character and setting, namely between Edna Pontellier and Huck and Jim, and the significance of the sea and river to the aforementioned characters. Thematically, the two...

The late nineteenth and early twentieth century was characterized as a time of growing change for women in terms of rights and freedom. As evidenced in “Editor’s Note: Contexts of The Awakening,” women’s acceptance of traditional female roles began dissipating, and women sought to become...

In Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, the sea symbolizes Edna’s freedom from oppression. Edna feels suffocated by conventional society and has no interest in being a devoted wife or mother. She feels trapped with Leonce and her children, but does not have the abilities required to...

Kate Chopin seamlessly integrates plot with setting in her novel The Awakening. Various locations mold Edna Pontellier into a bold transgressor of outdated social conventions, and allow for her dynamic growth. Edna grows accustomed to the lax customs found on Grande Isle, and gradually transitions...

The Awakening, by Kate Chopin, explores the emotional and spiritual consequences of sexism in the early 1900’s. During this time, women were legally viewed as the property of their husbands, and were often shamed for things like sexual promiscuity, lack of dependence on a husband,...

In Kate Chopin’s novel The Awakening, Edna’s marriage is complicated. Her marriage is both a source of positive and negative influence on her, in that it both confines, imprisons, and depresses her while also providing her with an impetus, reasoning, and inspiration for her individual...

Characters win the reader’s attention through common grounds of understanding, situation, or personality. Playing the major role, protagonists possess distinguishing characteristics of a complex character. In The Awakening, Kate Chopin develops the protagonist’s appearance through direct and dramatic description, her personality through her reactions, and...

“This above all- to thine own self be true, /And it must follow, as the night the day, / Thou canst not then be false to any man” (Hamlet, 1.3.154-56). As Shakespeare so eloquently wrote, finding oneself is the key to truth. This idea is...

It is paramount to first define femininity, before we can identify whether works of literature present it as a performance, and not a natural mode of being. The definition of femininity changes with the decades. In the 1920s a feminine appearance was considered to be...

Andrew Wakefield, a British gastroenterologist, published a study in the Lancet that was fraudulent. His medical research was seized by the UK medical register because they found dishonesty in his research paper. His findings published in the research paper was the vaccine for measles, mumps...

Beyond the Love Triangle: Trios in The Awakening is an article about Kate Chopin’s The Awakening written by Robert Lee Mahon. In this article, Mahon presents a new concept that had many major effects on Edna’s choices, including her choice to drown herself to death....

While there is arguably no justification for suicide, in the novel The Awakening by Kate Chopin, it is Edna’s act of freedom. The time period in which it happens, and the events that lead up to it only give a clear explanation that all she...

Experience is everything when talking about a subject. If you have actual experience with the topic that you are talking about, it will be immensely helpful, as you will have had priceless insight on how and why things are happening. It is just not the...

Because she rarely thinks about the consequences her actions have on other people, Edna Pontellier resembles a child. Nothing illustrates her childishness more powerfully than the scenes with her own sons, in which she betrays her irresponsibility and self-absorption. Yet Edna is far from alone...