...The Awakening English C-Uppsats Date/Term: Supervisor: Examiner: Serial Number: Höstterminen 2006 Åke Bergvall Mark Troy X-XX XX XX Karlstads universitet 651 88 Karlstad Tfn 054-700 10 00 Fax 054-700 14 60 Information@kau.se www.kau.se Kate Chopin is known for writing about women and their struggles in patriarchal society. In her three works The Awakening, “A Point at Issue” and “Wiser than a God”, she portrays women who have taken on different types of female roles. Per Seyersted calls these roles the “patriarchal woman”, which I choose too exemplify by Mme. Ratignolle from The Awakening, the “modern woman,” who Seyersted exemplifies by Eleanor from “A Point of Issue,” and the “emancipated woman,” who Seyersted exemplifies by Paula from “Wiser than a God” (Seyersted 102-105). One can say that these women have accepted and internalized a female role in society, by either following the rules of patriarchal society or breaking them. Edna, the protagonist of The Awakening, is a woman in search of her female identity. She is uncomfortable in her role as the “patriarchal woman” and has trouble obtaining either of the other two roles. This essay will focus on Edna’s inability to find her female role. Comparing her to the three other types of women in Chopin’s works, I will show why she cannot conform to any one of these roles, and how the resulting suicide is a conscious choice very much in character with Chopin’s portrayal of her. To understand Edna’s role in society and...
Words: 6972 - Pages: 28
...Heinrich-Heine-Universität Wintersemester 2010/11 Vertiefungsmodul Kurs: American Realism and Naturalism - Short Stories Seminarleiter: Georg Schiller Datum der Abgabe: 16.04.2011 Female Empowerment in Kate Chopin’s “The Awakening” Anjana Dhir BA Englisch KF, Geschichte NF 3. Semester Table of Contents 1. Introduction 3 2. The French – Creole society of Louisiana 4 2.1 Cultural background 4 2.2 French-Creole women 5 3. The Role of Women 6 4.1 Edna vs. Madame Ratignolle 7 3.1.1 “A Valuable Piece of Property” 7 3.1.2 Edna – The Unusual Woman 9 3.1.3 Adèle Ratignolle – The Archetype Woman 14 3.2 “Mother Woman” – The Patriarchal Ideology 16 4. Chopin’s Imagery 18 5. Conclusion - Edna’s Suicide 19 6. Bibliography 21 1. Introduction A certain ungovernable dread hung about her when in the water, unless there was a hand nearby that might reach out and reassure her. But that night she was like a little tottering, stumbling, clutching child, who of a sudden realizes its powers, and walks for the first time alone, boldly and with over confidence. […] A feeling of exultation overtook her, as if some power of significant import had been given her to control the working of her body and her soul. She grew daring and reckless, overestimating her strength. She...
Words: 7915 - Pages: 32
...Ramos states that however freedom comes, “the critical readings of the ending of Kate Chopin’s The Awakening have maintained that Edna Pontellier demonstrates either the heroic victory of a female protagonist over patriarchy through suicide, or the inevitable, fatal defeat of any strong-willed and independent woman seeking to escape the patriarchal structure” (232). Additionally, Ramos maintains that in addition to those reasons, another way to think about Edna’s behavior “is to see it in the service of a cautionary tale, against stripping yourself of identity” (232). From first hearing Madame Reisz play the piano, Pflueger reminds that “the piano in both texts is at odds with domestic harmony, creating havoc and disruption, and leading both protagonists to prefer lawlessness over order”, and that swimming by herself for the first time, are events that cause her awakening are also those that define the overarching or moral message (475). Even though Edna’s awakening leads her to suffer from the wisdom and self-awareness it affords her, the year of joy and understanding that accompanies this suffering is worth more to Edna than a lifetime of the semi-conscious submission that defined her former existence. Chopin describes Edna’s feelings as “The years that are gone seem like...
Words: 582 - Pages: 3
...Concept of liberty and femininity in The Yellow Wallpaper and The Awakening I decided to examine the concept of femininity and liberty in a short story “The Yellow Wall-paper” from the American writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman and in the book “The Awakening” from Kate Chopin. I chose these two books in order to demonstrate how society in the nineteenth century treated woman and how those woman were trying to escape from this concept. Femininity refers to set of behaviours and roles which are appropriate for women and judged by certain culture. In the nineteenth century were women expected to stay at home and wait for their husbands´ return each evening. Women should have these four attributes: piety, purity, submissiveness and domesticity. (Rula Quawas,2006) Women who had these attributes were considered happy and satisfied. It was also believed that there is a sharp line between home, the woman sanctuary, and the economic world because it is a hard world only for men. The Yellow Wallpaper The story begun with moving of the main hero and her husband to the colonial mansion. Her husband´s name is John and he is a high standing physician. They moved for a while because she had to undergo a rest-cure. This method of treatment of the main hero of The Yellow Wallpaper is Dr. Mitchell´s rest-cure for women which included no intellectual stimulation and no writing. Her brother is a physician as well and agrees with her husband, but she doesn’t think that the way they cure her is...
Words: 2614 - Pages: 11
...“Kingdom” with fanatical followers which caused an uproar with the community. Despite the wrongdoings of Matthews’ “Kingdom”, it sparked a lot of debate among the common folk of the time. The events that took place (including the people that were involved) were broadly exaggerated by the press in that time period. Even though the American people were disgusted by the actions of Matthias’ church, the “Kingdom” was still respected by society. “But Americans also sensed that the Matthias cult spoke with strange eloquence to the social and emotional upheavals in which they lived their own lives -- particularly their struggles to redefine what it meant to be a woman or a man in the new world of the nineteenth century”...
Words: 1643 - Pages: 7
...Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” makes the work seem a bit dramatic when compared to Kate Chopin’s The Awakening. Nonetheless, the two pieces of literature are remarkably similar; both stories feature a protagonist who takes a journey from the darkness of ignorance towards the light of truth. In the beginning of The Awakening, Edna Pontellier is a traditional wife and mother. At this stage, she is just like the prisoners in “Allegory of the Cave”, along with everyone else in her life and in her society. These prisoners have mistaken “shadows”, or society’s expectations, for the “truth”, or individual desires. Life events like meeting Robert cause Edna to rethink her desires. At this stage, she is escaping...
Words: 1178 - Pages: 5
...Throughout history women have been relegated to a secondary class in which reflects how they are seen and treated in society. In 1899 Kate Chopin was aware of the numerous double standards and gender roles that inhibit women, and that understanding lead her to write The Awakening, a story about a woman and her emerging sense of self, during the first wave of feminism which focused on women’s suffrage. French write Simone de Beauvoir who wrote The Second Sex which focused on the state and circumstance surrounding women from a philosophical standpoint. Today women have gained more legal and social security and standing, but continue their struggle in order to reach true equality in all aspect of life. Simone de Beauvoir focuses on themes that...
Words: 761 - Pages: 4
...Elijah married a missionary woman named Sarah, and together they established a "Retrenchment Society" and other organizations designed to spread the word of God. Elijah Pierson’s story mentions the poverty of the poor people and the flamboyant lives of the wealthy. “The richest men in New York drank wine and courted women who wore jewelry and silks; the worst of them even kept mistresses. When asked about God, they seemed to think He was a warm-hearted gentleman like themselves. The poor were different, too. There were untold thousands of them, and they occupied their own neighborhoods and lived beyond the reach of Christian influence and paternal benevolence. Elijah had seen nothing like them: brutal men with whiskey bottles, children who ran loose and seemed to have no homes, gaudily dressed girls who strolled the sidewalks and smiled...
Words: 1755 - Pages: 8
...Silva 30 May 2015 English 204 Professor Jimenez The Complexities of Being a Feminist If being a woman in today’s patriarchal led society is hard to be taken serious, it is hard to imagine how much harder it must have been many, many generations ago, it must have been next to impossible to express a thought, an idea when the like of Sor Juana Inez de la Cruz was roaming the earth. Hell, it has only been less than 50 years ago when women were just viewed as housewives, secretaries and nurses. Yet, it has taken more than 100 years for women to be viewed as equals. This idea of gender equality is not something new. The feminist movement has been an old, progressive one. Many women and men alike have had these gender equity ideas for centuries; this idea is not a new one as pioneers from Sor Juana to Kate Chopin to even the present-day Emma Watson, have stated time and time again, women are faced with oppression by the patriarchal society in many different ways that hurt women and men alike. Kate Chopin wrote many short stories in her time that pushed the envelope for the feminist movement. Two stories in particular were “The Storm” and “ The Story of An Hour”. Both of these stories have a female protagonist oppressed by a male antagonist, which very much can be construed as a commentary of what social normal behavior was, a patriarchal driven society that oppressed any type of female freedoms or expressions. In Chopin’s short story, “The Story of An Hour” the protagonist...
Words: 1590 - Pages: 7
...that I could use to describe myself, such as housewife, student, and caregiver. The social commentary of the late 19th century time period is just starting to look past the ideal woman, who was described as the “mother-woman,” to the version of femininity that is trying to be more of an equal with men. The definition of feminism is “the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes” (MW 236). Nothing in that definition leads me to conclude, as Edna seems to believe, that motherhood is the one thing that will retard her individual growth. Although feminists claim that The Awakening by Kate Chopin portrays a woman stifled by a society controlled by men, ultimately the decision to act selfishly or selflessly belongs to Edna. There is more than one choice given in the text of who and what Edna could be. Edna could become the selfless “mother woman” that society is looking for, or the more selfishly motivated single woman who makes her own way in the world, but what Edna also fails to realize is that every individual has their own way of fulfilling each role. Edna has a concrete example of each of these roles to follow in her life, in Mademmoiselle Reisz and Adele Ratignolle. Both of Edna’s role models are set into certain “types” yet find a way to stray from them, and make them unique to their situation. Change doesn’t have to be...
Words: 2145 - Pages: 9
...as it was expected to live up to Victorian ideals. This restricted females, especially due to the patriarchal control over the household, which is represented early on in Act 1 in A Doll’s House from the stage directions; “A bell rings in the hall...Enter NORA” ,this shows that the only way to enter her own home is through the access being granted by someone else. This straight away highlights the fact that she has no key to enter her own household, leaving her powerless to make the choice of when she may enter or leave the domestic sphere. This would seem to be a bizarre concept to modern audiences as it can be seen a belittling, whereas normal to a contemporary audience, though this is difficult to generalise. By Ibsen not allowing Nora to have a key could also be interpreted as also being metaphorical, due to having no control because she is Torvalds’s possession with society locking her away from giving her no escape route out. This contrasts to Shaw’s representation of Vivie as you can infer that she has outside knowledge of the real world since she hasn’t been in a ‘doll’s house.’ This is drawn attention to from when she speaks of having been to ‘Chancery Lane’ for a month The main time Nora rejects her traditional gender role would be at the end of the play, when she has a realization, leading to leaving her family. In a sense, the final act of the play is Nora’s awakening, in which she realizes that she was never happy in her life with Torvald and recognizes that she...
Words: 610 - Pages: 3
...Children of the New World: Acting out “The role of Algerian women in their own society has rarely been what it has seemed” (Heggoy 1). Prior to the Algerian war, women in Algerian society were under patriarchal rule and, under such rule, were expected to meet certain expectations. Among other rules and regulations, Algerian women were prohibited from being outside their home unaccompanied and were required to keep themselves heavily “veiled” at all times. They were not to question the authority of the Algerian men, especially the ones in their family. Despite these limitations, Algerian women found a place in the revolution. Although it sometimes meant defying their status quo as women in Algerian society, women used the resources and means they had to make a contribution, some small and some large, to the resistance. In Children of the New World, Assia Djebar explores the actions taken by various women in the hopes of aiding the nationals in their fight against colonization. Her “choice of female characters range from traditional housewives like Amna and Cherifa to educated, more seemingly ‘modern’ women’” like Hassiba. Such characters contribute to “ what Djebar sees as the more fundamental revolution of undoing patriarchal norms” (Channah 1). The women in Djebar’s Children of the New World make a wide range of contributions to the Algerian fight for independence. In her novel, Djebar “shows the awakening of a new nation and in people by describing the growing awareness of several...
Words: 1495 - Pages: 6
...According to Lloyd De Mause (1974) we’re only just ‘awakening from the nightmare’. This refers to how bad children were treated in the past. This is backed up by Aries who believes children are more protected, valued and cared for today, compared to the past where they were forced to work and treated as ‘mini adults’. However, Postman (1994) disagrees with this and believes ‘childhood is disappearing at a dazzling speed’ due to the rise in television culture and the decline in the written media. When the written media was introduced, not many children were able to read or write, allowing their parents to control what their children could know. Within the past 50 years, the rise of the television culture has allowed children to learn these things without their parents telling them, causing a blur in the distinction between what a child and an adult knows. Palmer (2006) agrees with Postman and believes there is an emergence of ‘toxic childhood’. This is caused by technology, fast food, parents working longer hours to earn money and more tests being given to children while in education. Despite this argument, organisations such as Save the Children are protecting children in 3rd world countries who are involved in events such as war. This is an example of the west imposing their ideas of childhood on the rest of the world. This suggests childhood is not disappearing, but becoming more widespread. Hillman (1993) believes childhood has not improved for girls over the past 50 years...
Words: 510 - Pages: 3
...stories achieve a pan-Indian sweep. women agaisnst opression- From women being passive narrators of stories, women now tell stories that emerge from their lived life experiences and memories. As Vaidehi herself puts it, there was a clear demarcation between the outside world; with its loud, authoritative voices (the Chavadi and beyond), and the inside world; entrenched in its poignant, disquieting silences (the kitchen, the backyard and a little more). Most of Vaidehi's narratives are invariably set against the backdrop of these two distinct worlds — the outer realm with its imposing voice and the inner realm shut into a silence. The tension in negotiating these two worlds, often perceived as infringement, seen as protest by the patriarchal order, make for the plot of most Vaidehi's stories. Vaidehi's women are almost always a product of their situation, hence their negotiations are unstated. Akku from her collection Antarangada Putagalu is one of Vaidehi's most haunting story. It is the story of Akku, a zany middle-aged woman, who takes on the world in her state of madness. Akku's good-for-nothing husband suddenly disappears, and Akku goes around imagining she's pregnant. Vaidehi's akku, the "dark double" gives a hearing to her simmering anxiety and rage....
Words: 732 - Pages: 3
...and empowerment within society. It is imperative that Disney’s skewed recreation of the beloved tale, The Little Mermaid be analytically criticized because it was meticulously portrayed to perpetuate anti-feminism. It is also important to analyze the use of language, images and other affecting factors and how they too contribute to sexism depictions in this film. There are various examples within the film where the female characters’ bodies and minds are demeaned and undervalued because of the imposing dominance the characters imposed upon them. One of these includes the exchange of Ariel’s voice for legs and the declaration in “Kiss the Girl” that could win over Eric without saying a word because of her good looks....
Words: 1486 - Pages: 6
