Analysis Of Edna Pontelliers The Awakening - 991 Words

One thing that everyone needs to do throughout their lives is discover their true selves. Some people take years to figure this out, some take decades, and others never truly discover the person they are supposed to be. In the story â€Å"The Awakening† Edna Pontellier has chosen the domestic lifestyle and, in doing so has lost sight of who she is. â€Å"The Awakening† is about her journey in attempt to discover the person she is supposed to be. Edna’s search for her true identity is respectable; however she does not go about doing this in the right way. In her quest to find her true self, Edna begins to emulate other people’s lives rather than discovering her own. This ultimately leads to Edna’s suicide due to the fact that she was living a life†¦show more content†¦Edna uses Reisz’s life as a blueprint for how she should live her own. This can be seen in the activities that Edna chooses to participate in once she branches out on he r own. Mademoiselle Reisz is extremely fond of music, and once Edna hears her play she takes interest in art in order to express herself in the same way Reisz does. Throughout the story Edna models the way she lives after Reisz, and it is apparent that she envies her freedom and independence. Furthermore in Edna’s search for happiness she abandons her family due to the fact that she views them as shackles that are holding her back from being the person she is supposed to be. This extremely selfish act was brought on because of how she viewed Reisz’s life. By leaving her family she is able to focus on herself and who she is which is something she had not been able to do up to that point. In doing so she completely disregards her family, because she thinks this is what she needs to do in order to discover who she is. She comes to this conclusion by looking at the way Reisz lives and attempts to emulate it quite like how she emulates the way she does everything. Correspondingly it is apparent that Edna lacks in originality in the sense that she never makes her own decisions. Before and after she begins her awakening everything she does is fabricated to replicate how someone else isShow MoreRelatedAnalysis Of Edna Pontelliers The Awakening1596 Words   |  7 Pagesway, however many found themselves fulfilling the role without protest and enjoying the simplicity of such a life back in the 1800s. Edna Pontellier, however, refused to be one of these obedient women, deciding to instead follow a path of discovery that allowed her to find herself by being independent of her husband and of society. In The Awakening by Kate Chopin, Edna Pontellier expresses a woman who refuses to bow down to societal expectations, rather freeing herself from those chains and becomingRead MoreEssay about Yaeger’s Critique of Chopin’s The Awakening1003 Words   |  5 PagesYaeger’s Critique of Chopin’s The Awakening In â€Å"‘A Language Which Nobody Understood’: Emancipatory Strategies in The Awakening,† Patricia Yaeger questions the feminist assumption that Edna Pontellier’s adulterous behavior represent a radical challenge to patriarchal values. 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She cannot see herself as another submissive woman in her Creole society; rather, she would like to choose her own path. Kate Chopin, in The Awakening, illustrates that women are unable to live the ir lives as they see fit through Edna’s struggle to cope withRead More Showalter’s Analysis of Chopin’s The Awakening Essay601 Words   |  3 PagesShowalter’s Analysis of Chopin’s The Awakening In â€Å"Tradition and the Female Talent: The Awakening as a Solitary Book,† Elaine Showalter makes a compelling argument that â€Å"Edna Pontellier’s ‘unfocused yearning’ for an autonomous life is akin to Kate Chopin’s yearning to write works that go beyond female plots and feminine endings† (204). Urging her reader to read The Awakening â€Å"in the context of literary tradition,† Showalter demonstrates the ways in which Chopin’s novel both builds upon and departs