The Awakening Essay - 1036 Words

The Awakening opens in the late 1800s in Grand Isle, a summer holiday resort popular with the wealthy inhabitants of nearby New Orleans. Edna Pontellier is vacationing with her husband, Là ©once, and their two sons at the cottages of Madame Lebrun, which house affluent Creoles from the French Quarter. Là ©once is kind and loving but preoccupied with his work. His frequent business-related absences mar his domestic life with Edna. Consequently, Edna spends most of her time with her friend Adà ¨le Ratignolle, a married Creole who epitomizes womanly elegance and charm. Through her relationship with Adà ¨le, Edna learns a great deal about freedom of expression. Because Creole women were expected and assumed to be chaste, they could behave in a†¦show more content†¦Worried about the changing attitude and increasing disobedience of his wife, Là ©once seeks the guidance of the family physician, Doctor Mandelet. A wise and enlightened man, Doctor Mandelet suspects that Ednaâ₠¬â„¢s transformation is the result of an affair, but he hides his suspicions from Là ©once. Instead, Doctor Mandelet suggests that Là ©once let Edna’s defiance run its course, since attempts to control her would only fuel her rebellion. Là ©once heeds the doctor’s advice, allowing Edna to remain home alone while he is away on business. With her husband gone and her children away as well, Edna wholly rejects her former lifestyle. She moves into a home of her own and declares herself independent—the possession of no one. Her love for Robert still intense, Edna pursues an affair with the town seducer, Alcà ©e Arobin, who is able to satisfy her sexual needs. Never emotionally attached to Arobin, Edna maintains control throughout their affair, satisfying her animalistic urges but retaining her freedom from male domination. At this point, the self-sufficient and unconventional old pianist Mademoiselle Reisz adopts Edna as a sort of protà ©gà ©, warning Edna of the sacrifices required of an artist. Edna is moved by Mademoiselle Reisz’s piano playing and visits her often. She is also eager to read the letters from abroad that Robert sends the woman. A woman who devotes her life entirely to her art, Mademoiselle serves as an inspiration and model to Edna, who continues her process ofShow MoreRelatedThe Awakening on Kate Chopins The Awakening1745 Words   |  7 Pages The time period of the 1880s that Kate Chopin lived in influenced her to write The Awakening, a very controversial book because of many new depictions of women introduced in the book. The Awakening is a book about a woman, Edna Pontellier. In the beginning, she is a happy woman with her husband and 2 kids vacationing at Grand Isle. While there, Edna realizes she is in love with Robert Lebrun and that she was just forced into an unloving/dissatisfying marriage with Mr. Pontellier. Robert howeverRead MoreDemoralization In The Awakening1584 Words   |  7 Pagesthem and cause them to lose hope. Kate Chopin uses words like â€Å"depressed† (56), â€Å"hopeless† (56) and â€Å"despondency† (p115) to describe Edna, the heroine, in The Awakening. Coupling this description with Edna taking her life at the end of the novel and Chopin’s own inferred demoralization, due to the almost universal aversion to The Awakening, the natural conclusion is that it is a work of â€Å"great personal demoralization†, (Companion 5) as Michael Levenson states. Levenson suggests most modernist authorsRead MoreFeminism In The Awakening1562 Words   |  7 Pagesprivileges as each other. Basic human rights would give others the notion that this is how all humans should have been treated from the beginning. However, this is far from the truth. 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Dr. Malcolm Sayer, who is a research physician, is confronted with a number of patients who had each been afflicted with a devastating disease called Encephalitis Lethargica. The illness killed most of the people who contracted it, but some were left living