Hero In Kate Chopin's The Awakening

The traditional standard of gender roles changes throughout the Novella. The first instance of this shift occurs once Edna meets Robert Leburn in Grand Isle. Edna and Robert’s relationship starts off friendly but soon shifts into a more passionate and intimate relationship. Throughout the summer, Edna begins to fall in love with Robert. Robert helps to fill the void left from Edna’s distance husband Leonce. Her marriage with Leonce is estranged, to the extent where Edna considers the marriage an “accidental marriage.” Leonce treats Edna as property and he spends most of his time traveling as part of work for his brokerage company. When Leonce is home, he prefers to go to the Klein Hotel to gamble instead of spending time with his wife and children. Leonce and Edna do not understand one another, as their relationship is more materialistic than passionate.

Chopin defines a “mother-woman” as someone “who idolized their children, worshiped their husbands” (8). How do Chopin and Gilman use character foils to give us insight into the protagonists and societal expectations?

Edna becomes used to his presence. Robert fills that empty space where Leonce rightfully should be. Roberts constant presence is much needed and accepted by Edna. Robert has done more for Edna, emotionally, in a short summer than Leonce has in their entire marriage. Robert Lebrun brings new emotions and self-awareness in Edna's life. He "teaches her to swim furthering her autonomy, and with his descriptions, which were unseemingly smooth and egotistical, of his life experiences he ignited the beginnings of Edna's self-expression (Carol Stone 23). Edna has up until this point allowed her family and acquaintances to participate in her life.

But they need not have thought that they could possess her, body and soul" (504).  Although Edna did perform her duties as a wife for some time, she is not the typical housewife.  She does not worship her husband or idolize her children, which makes both Edna and Leonce begin to sense that Edna is different from the other mother-women (Lin 1).  Edna never realized the reasons she neglected her duties as a wife until she fell in love with Robert and acknowledged that her desires and needs exist outside of her marriage.  Thus, after her experiences with Robert, Edna is ready to neglect her husband even more, because she now realizes that her husband is holding her back from her needs.  When Leonce tries to make Edna act like the other women that obey their husbands, his attempts to control Edna further instigate Edna's desire for independence from him.  For example, the scene when Edna is lying in the hammock, Leonce says: "I can't permit you to stay out there all night.  You must come in the house instantly," Edna replies: "I mean to stay out here.  I don't wish to go in, and I don't intend to.  Don't speak to me like that again; I shall not answer you" (492).  Edna is carefree and spirited, and she refuses to conform to her husband because she does not want to lose herself.  Becoming the perfect, obedient wife would mean losing her individuality, and Edna realizes she can gain no fulfillment

Edna said to Robert, “I am no longer one of Mr. Pontellier’s possessions to dispose of or not. I give myself where I choose. If he were to say, ‘Here, Robert, take her and be happy; she is yours,’ I should laugh at you both” (Chopin 139). Prior to her saying that to him, Robert was talking about how he wished that Mr. Pontellier would set his wife free. This implied that he also viewed Edna as a possession of Leonce’s and when Edna explained that she did not want to belong to anyone, he did not understand. When Robert and Edna hit a bump in the road in their relationship, Robert immediately fled and left Edna a note saying that he was leaving forever. This shows that Robert wasn’t considering the way that leaving would make Edna feel and that even though he loved her, he took the easy way out for himself. Instead of accepting the independence that Edna sought, he ran away. Robert was selfish throughout the story by loving and accepting Edna only when it was convenient for him, and then escaping when things got

Her romance with Robert Lebrun for one is nothing short of a tragedy that served as catalyst for the final step of her awakening to her genuine soul. The society norms compel her to feel trapped within a society bound by expectations. Furthermore, it influences her outlook on life and perhaps the state of her personal life, which causes her to be more defiant against that. When Robert flees to Mexico to thwart the mutual attraction developing, Edna fantasizes Robert even more because it is forbidden. Then, Robert returns with vague intentions that ruins the image she created.

She is moved by music. During that summer Edna sketches to find an artistic side to herself. She needs an outlet to express who she is. Edna feels that art is important and adds meaning to her life. After the summer is over and they are back to the city and Edna is a changed woman. She makes many steps towards independence. She stops holding "Tuesday socials", she sends her children to live in the country with their grandparents, she refuses to travel abroad with her husband, she moves out of the Lebrun house on Esplanade Street, and to earn money, she starts selling her sketches and betting the horses. She also starts a relationship with another man Alcee Arobin. He meant nothing to her emotionally but she used him for sexual pleasure. Edna evolved above her peers she did not believe that sexuality and motherhood had to be linked. The last step of her "awakening" is the realization that she can not fulfill her life in a society that will not allow her to be a person and a mother. Edna commits suicide in the ocean at Grand Isle.

Although Robert left to get away from Edna, he might have actually made things worse. He promised to write to her, but never did. By Robert not writing to her, it left Edna in agony. She longed for him even more when she did not hear from him. Not knowing that Edna would eventually read the letters, he wrote to Mademoiselle Reisz unintentionally professing his love for Mrs. Pontellier. After reading the letters, Edna realized that the feelings were mutual. Edna came to the conclusion that she wanted to get away from her house, husband, and anything that reminded her of the such so she decided to move into a small apartment around the corner.

Throughout The Awakening, a novel by Kate Chopin, the main character, Edna Pontellier showed signs of a growing depression. There are certain events that hasten this, events which eventually lead her to suicide.

In her essay "Un-Utterable Longing: The Discourse of Feminine Sexuality in Kate Chopin's The Awakening", Cynthia Griffin Wolff creates what Ross Murfin describes as "a critical whole that is greater than the sum of its parts." (376) By employing a variety of critical approaches (including feminist, gender, cultural, new historicism, psychoanalytic and deconstruction) Wolff offers the reader a more complete (albeit complex) explanation of Edna Pontellier's behavior and motivations than any single approach could provide. Wolff contends that locating the source of Edna's repression is the key to understanding Chopin's story.

In the novel The Awakening, Kate Chopin depicts the development of rebellion to isolation through the main character, Edna Pontellier. Chopin supports her characterization of Edna through a series of wardrobe changes that reveal the progression of rebellion, independence, separation, and isolation. Chopin chronicles the evolution of Edna in order to propose that rebellion ultimately leads to isolation. Chopin displays Edna’s rebellion against her husband, Léonce Pontellier, through a transformation in her dress.

In “The Awakening” by Kate Chopin, Edna is driven the conviction freedom is found in autonomy and independence, even at the cost of her family; this conviction remains firmly rooted by her decision to end her own life. Chopin pushes the envelope exploring the cost that comes with fighting for freedom and independence at a personal level. All freedom requires a sacrifice to some degree; freedom is only gained to the degree that a person is willing to

Lastly, Edna explores self-expression in her own physical passion. Her romantic relationships with Alcee and, most importantly, Robert, give her the means to express love and passion she had preciously repressed. When Edna first explores these sexual feelings she, as Davis states, "succumbs to the seductions of a roué, Alcee Arobin, without

When Edna receives gifts from Mr. Pontellier she is forced to realize that she loves him, yet what she also realizes is that she truly does not love him. In her romance with Robert, she feels great affection and love for him. He as well feels that same for her, yet he cannot corrupt the union of marriage by being with Edna so he decides to leave and not further the relationship. Edna’s inability to attain

The story, The Awakening, is about Edna Pontellier’s internal conflict between her desire for independence and her need to remain a high-class member of society. When away on summer vacation Edna has the realization that she has control of her own life and begins to focus on her self and not what others think. During her awakening, Edna is faced with much resilience from her husband and friends and instead of becoming someone she is not, Edna Pontellier ends her own life as she sees it is her only option. The author, Kate Chopin, uses many characters to exemplify the conflicting ideals emerging in Edna; particularly Madame Ratignolle acts as a foil to Edna’s newfound persona, instead symbolizing the conservation of a traditional