Ednas Awakening Essay -- essays papers

Edna's Awakening Kate Chopin's "The Awakening" is a work of litature like none other I have read. It is not hard to imagine why this major work of Chopin's was banished for decades not long after its initial publication in 1899. Most of society did not like the fact that "The Awakenings" main character, Edna Pontellier, went against the socially acceptable role of women at that time. At that time in history, women did just what they were expected to do. They were expected to be good daughters, good wives, and good mothers. Edna seemed to fit this mold at first, but eventually as the story develops Edna breaks free from that mold. Edna chose to do what society expected of her, she marries, and leaves her fantasies and dreams in the depths of the shadows. "The acme of bliss, which would have been a marriage with the tragedian, was not for her in this world. As the devoted wife of a man who worshiped her, she felt she would take her place with a certain dignity in the world of reality, closing the portals forever behind her upon the realm of romance and dreams." After marriage, Edna faced the expectations of motherhood and being a devoted mother, after all "if it was not a mother's place to look after children, whose on earth was it?" The outward appearance of Edna's life looked perfect, she was the envy of many women. "And the ladies, selecting with dainty and discriminating fingers and a little greedily, all declared that Mr. Pontellier was the best husband in the world. Mrs. Pontellier was forced to admit she knew of none better." The cover of her life was a picture of a fairy tale, but inside, the pages were filled with the emptiness and the loneliness she was feeling. During that ... ...obert, but he will not because it will disgrace her to leave her husband. Now, the wings that once held such possibilities for her new life were shattered and "a bird with a broken wing was beating the air above, reeling, fluttering, circling, disabled down, down to the water." In the end Edna takes a death walk down to the beach. When she arrives at the shore, she "casts the unpleasant pricking garments from her." This symbolizing the shedding of her "unpleasant" and "pricking" life. She could hear the waves inviting her, and "She felt like a new-born creature, opening its eyes in a familiar world that it had never known." As Edna swims towards eternity she thinks of many things. Now the shore was far behind and her strength was gone, not only to swim, but live. Edna underwent an "awakening" and as a result chose the endless sleep of death.