Women In Kate Chopin's The Awakening

Hero. The word elicits images of someone who is altruistic and has integrity. When thinking of a hero, it is most likely that selfishness does not come to mind. As the protagonist of Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, Edna Pontellier is heralded as a champion of female empowerment, ultimately taking her own life as the finale to her quest to set herself free from the oppression she thinks she faces. Her quest to rise above the Victorian idyll of her predetermined role as the “angel of the house” and to find her own definition of a purposeful existence eventually takes a solipsistic turn. Edna Pontellier is bound by the constraints of her role as a female; but she becomes oblivious to the predicaments of the people around her, putting her own journey to self-awareness ahead of the needs of everyone around

Women felt like their identity was found in their husband, as seen in “The Story of an Hour.” “There would be no one to live for during those coming years; she would live for herself (Chopin).” That line taken from the text proves that women did not live for themselves. Their desires from life were not typically considered, their role was to help the husband. Because of the standards set for women in this time frame, women were restricted, they did not receive equal opportunities and they appear to be under the control of their husband.

During the nineteenth century, women were the main victims of social and economic discrimination. (Cruea 187). Women were presented with an ideal role and were forced to fit it. “The negation of equality and fraternity excluded women from full participation in society” (Clark 1). Women trying to fit these roles during this time, were faced with many obstacles, and restrictions based on their social expectations, and how they were expected to be seen. In The Awakening, Kate Chopin creates characters that reflect women's roles during this time and the struggles they encounter. “Of a Southern lady who wanted to do what she wanted to. From wanting to, she did, with disastrous consequences.” (Eble 9). Chopin uses different characters throughout the story to resemble the different stereotypes of women and their gender roles during the nineteenth century.

Have you ever wondered what the lifestyles of Nineteenth Century women were like? Were they independent, career women or were they typical housewives that cooked, clean, watched the children, and catered to their husbands. Did the women of this era express themselves freely or did they just do what society expected of them? Kate Chopin was a female author who wrote several stories and two novels about women. One of her renowned works of art is The Awakening. This novel created great controversy and received negative criticism from literary critics due to Chopin's portrayal of women by Edna throughout the book.

Sojourner Truth’s words in her speech, “Ain’t I a Woman?” served as an anthem for women everywhere during her time. Truth struggled with not only racial injustice but also gender inequality that made her less than a person, and second to men in society. In her speech, she warned men of “the upside down” world against the power of women where “together, [women] ought to be able to turn it back, and get it right side up again!” Today, America proudly stands thinking that Truth’s uneasiness of gender inequality was put to rest. Oppression for women, however, continues to exist American literature has successfully captured and exposed shifts in attitude towards women and their roles throughout American history.

Author Kate Chopin of The Awakening theorizes “That outward existence which conforms, the inward life that questions.” Margaret Atwood ponders upon this ideal in her Bildungsroman Cat’s Eye, in which protagonist Elaine Risley of a unique upbringing encounters life in a traditional school, in which her intrinsic values are tested by her so-called peers Cordelia, Grace, and Carol. The social conformity Elaine was forced to undergo caused her to lose herself in the process, creating the plot of the novel. Elaine’s changes in interaction, internal struggle of morality among her peers, and lack of supervision created the depressed state she portrayed throughout the novel. Had this deterioration of the self not been included in Cat’s Eye, the work

Chopin endorses this statement in her writing The Awakening. She depicts a character Alcee Arobin as well-known most of all for his seduction of married women. He exploits and takes advantage of women sexually. He often uses sweet sexy words, such as, “I only live when I am near you,” (Chopin 103) to allure women for achieving his “sexual desire”. He is sensuous and narcotic through his manners, such as when he looks at Edna and touches his lips upon Edna’s hand.

Women of today have been valued very differently from women living in traditional times. The value placed upon women have become very different yet there are still some similarities in comparison to the traditional values. Women have learned to become more independent, let their voice be heard, and tend to strut their body more than the traditional woman would.

The average size of an American fashion model? Four. The average size of an American woman? Fourteen. Throughout history, more and more American women have claimed to be unsatisfied with their physical appearances. This is due to the constant presence of thin, perfectly proportioned models in media. The image of women in media creates a standard of beauty that cannot even be reached by the models themselves. Based on the image of them portrayed in media, American women have been expected to try to reach unattainable roles.

A woman's happiness and success during this era is often dependant on the male or husband of the marriage. During this era, Chopin displays to us in both her short stories "The Storm" and "The Story of an Hour" of how reliant women are in their relationship and lives. Women during this era were heavily looked down upon. They were looked so down upon that even the women themselves would look down on themselves resulting in more reliant on the men for their success in life. The women during this time era would be so reliant on men they would do much for the men despite whether they had loved him or not. Chopin many times wrote her short stories with women in marriage with men just for the benefits of living and success rather than love; a “vignettte exploring female desires that cannot be fulfilled in marriage, a common theme for Chopin.” (Brantley 1). During the 19th century, both men and women weren't seen as equal at all. Another push to being reliant on men is government rules and policies of men being the more stronger party of the marriage, relationship, or family. Men were seen as the “better” sex so then women were more reliant. Women had to depend on men to supply them in order to live a healthy lifestyle. Kate Chopin displays this highly in her two short stories as the two women seem really reliant on their male counterpart. The two women shows signs of weakness while their male counterpart were away.

The Awakening by Kate Chopin, is set in the late 1800’s on Grand Isle, a summer-time resort that’s popular with the wealthy residents of nearby New Orleans, Louisiana. Edna Pontellier is the main character of the novel and is vacationing there with her husband, Léonce, and their two sons at the cottages of Madame Lebrun. These cottages are home to the wealthy Creoles from the French Quarter. Although Léonce (a rich Creole businessman) is caring and affectionate, he is very consumed with his work. Because he travels frequently for business, it has taken a dramatic toll on his marriage and his relationship with his wife Edna. As a result, Edna spends a lot of her days with her good friend Adèle Ratignolle, a married Creole who represents feminine

Chopin’s work has allowed her to become recognized more over time. As women keep gaining rights, so are Chopin’s works of literature acquiring literary attention. Chopin realized that people valued morality, especially when it came to things such as adultery and the marital discord caused by such, so she decided to use those two items to try and deliver a message concerning an overarching patriarchy that set into motion internal strife for stereotypically frail individuals and women alike who had been cornered by the strangling ideology. Chopin uses identity as a main focal point concerning her philosophy over her search for self and desire to express herself when being subjugated.

Chopin relates this to where women are not going to be “just a housewife” anymore, but instead show the tendencies of marital status. She is useful to the audience to give us knowledge how symbolizing something bad and turn it into something joyful and memorable. As she is one with the characters, she understands how one can break free of the unwanted relationship and seek happiness along the journey. By visualizing other people’s happiness, the peers imagine themselves in their shoes that reveals their true feelings in various obstacles that comes along the

Kate Chopin is known as one of the greatest feminist authors of her time. She grew up around independent, widowed women: her great-grandmother, grandmother, and mother. With her father’s death due to a train wreck, and her husband’s death from“swamp fever,” Chopin was left alone to support her six children. According to Nina Baym, the author of Chopin’s biography, influences from strong women in Chopin’s life led to why she wrote about desires, limited aspects of women’s lives, and how women began to challenge the male-dominated culture (550). A lack of men as chief figures in Chopin’s life prevented her from experiencing a tradition of submission by women to men. Additionally, many of Chopin’s works were influenced by realism and feminism.

During the feminist movement many female authors began to write novels about female emancipation. In these novels, the protagonist experiences enlightenment where she discovers that she is living an incomplete life that society has oppressed her into. Before the movement, society forced women into roles that were inferior to men and they were thought of as men’s property. Harold bloom states, “The direction of The Awakening follows what is becoming a pattern in literature by and about women…toward greater self-knowledge that leads in turn to a revelation of the disparity between that self-knowledge and nature of the world” (Bloom, Kate Chopin 43). Moreover, Chopin viewed women’s independence as a personal challenge more than a social struggle, which contradicts her literary works. According to Harold Bloom, “Chopin’s novel was not intended to make a broad social statement but rather that it indicates that Chopin viewed women’s independence as a personal matter”(Bloom, Bloom’s Notes 58). In the past, the novel was banned because of its connection to the feminist movement.