A
general statement of the literary work’s content, a summary or a paraphrase
The Awakening, by
Kate Chopin portrays the story of Edna Pontellier and the changes or “awakenings”
that occur in her life. Through story Edna experiences many awakenings and
discovers more about herself, while wanting independence. This book is mostly
of one woman’s struggle to mesh with society and to her inability to cope with
others in her search for liberation and independence. At the start of the
story, Edna is a young mother of two and the wife to a successful businessman.
While the family is vacationing, Edna becomes acquainted with Robert Lebrun, a younger
man who plays with her fertile heart to become more intimate with her. These cherished
conversations with Robert invite Edna to become more independent along with her
learning to swim in the ocean. All in all, Robert awakens feeling Edna had long
since forgotten to before becoming married. “Even as a child she had lived her
own small life all within herself. At a very early period she had apprehended
instinctively the dual life—that outward existence which conforms, the inward
life which questions”; this shows how Edna has both and inner and outer
feelings and is used as a contrast from the beginning to the end of the novel
to show how she conforms less and less as the story progressed. After returning
from the vacation and her lover’s departure to México, Edna has despairs like
no other and as a result abandons her old life of a mother and wife, to one of
remorse and independence. She has no attention to society’s expectations and no
devotion towards her family, but instead explores individuality of love, life,
and sexual serenity. Chopin's uses real and symbolic imagery to display Edna’s
senses and the feminism component of society. She uses the character Edna to
portray the struggle most women went through during this time period and the traditional
restraints most women had on them.
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