Essay on The Awakening - 733 Words

Criticism of The Awakening Reading through all of the different criticism of Kate Chopin’s The Awakening has brought about ideas and revelations that I had never considered during my initial reading of the novel. When I first read the text, I viewed it as a great work of art to be revered. However, as I read through all of the passages, I began to examine Chopin’s work more critically and to see the weaknesses and strengths of her novel. Reading through others interpretations of her novel has also brought forth new concepts to look at again. In An American Madame Bovary, Cyrille Arnavon argues that â€Å"there seems to be insufficient justification for Edna’s ‘romantic’ suicide, and this is the main weakness of this fine†¦show more content†¦However, in her suicide, Edna is giving herself to her children, to Robert, to everyone but herself. Another interesting aspect of the novel is irony, which seems to play a significant role throughout the story. Although we read about Edna’s awakening, she seems to be sleeping during most of it. As George Arms notes, â€Å"When she first openly seeks out Robert and takes him--again amusingly--to Sunday morning mass, she is drowsy at the service . . .† (200). Edna sleeps the day away at a nearby house. Then, as Arms also points out, Edna is awakened â€Å"to an erotic life not through Robert, whom she truly loves, but through Alcee, whom she uses merely as a convenience (200). But when Robert returns, she informs him that he had been the one to awaken her. So who was it really? Then there is the irony found in the use of her children, whom she â€Å"has little intimacy, and her husband accuses her of neglecting them.† (201). Yet she would die for her children according to her own words. Edna’s great desire to be with Robert and have her dreams fulfilled are a possibility when Robert comes to her. She tells him â€Å"nothing else in the world is of any consequence† (238). Yet she leaves him to be with Adele. As Cynthia Griffin Wolff explains, â€Å"To have stayed with Robert would have meant consummation, finally, the joining of her dreamlike passion to a flesh and blood lover; to leave was to risk that opportunity† (239). Was it that Edna was afraid to stay andShow MoreRelatedAwakenings Essay1018 Words   |  5 Pagesbeginning to end the movie The Awakening, Robin Williams demonstrates his knowledge of the scientific method. The scientific method is a procedure of steps that is used to prove something. In the movie it is used to show that patients suffering from an un-named disorder do have a slight opportunity to return to their normal state of being. The scientific method is a list of steps to prove something and make into a law or theory based on your final product andThe Awakening findings. It is composedRead MoreEssay on The Awakening751 Words   |  4 Pages The Awakening Analytical Essay THE AWAKENING Throughout Kate Chopin’s, The Awakening, numerous scenes of birth and renewal are depicted. Various symbols placed throughout the book show Edna Pontellier’s awakenings. For instance, many references are made to oceans and water. It is in the water that Edna has her first rebirth, but it is also the place where she chooses to die. Water symbolizes life, which is the reason that Edna’s renewal takes place there, but it also symbolizes darkness andRead More The Awakening Essay1036 Words   |  5 Pages 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. Con sequently, Edna spends most of her time with her friend Adà ¨le RatignolleRead MoreEssay on The Awakening1358 Words   |  6 Pageswomen throughout America would be drastically different and would withhold fewer rights if it were not for women in the nineteenth and twentieth century like the characters Madame Ratignolle, Edna Pontellier, and Mademoiselle Reisz in the novel The Awakening, by Kate Chopin. They shaped America into a place where freedom and equality for women is possible. Although the three women were different, they all contributed to different aspects of the feminist movement. Each character represents a distinctRead More The Awakening Essay1609 Words   |  7 Pages Edna Pontellier Throughout The Awakening, a novel by Kate Chopin, the main character, Edna Pontellier showed signs of a growing depression. There are certain events that hasten this, events which eventually lead her to suicide. At the beginning of the novel when Ednas husband, Leonce Pontellier, returns from Kleins hotel, he checks in on the children and believing that one of them has a fever he tells his wife, Edna. She says that the child was fine when he went to bed, but Mr. PontellierRead More Essay on The Awakening712 Words   |  3 PagesCritical Views of The Awakening      Ã‚  Ã‚   The Awakening, written by Kate Chopin, is full of ideas and understanding about human nature. In Chopins time, writing a story with such great attention to sensual details in both men and women caused skepticism among readers and critics. However, many critics have different views with deeper thought given to The Awakening. Symbolism, the interpretation of Ednas suicide, and awakenings play important roles in the analysis of all critics.    SymbolismRead More The Awakening Essays982 Words   |  4 Pages The Awakening is a novel about the growth of a woman into her own person, in spite of the mold society has formed for her. The book follows Edna Pontellier through about a year of her life. During this time we see her struggle to find who she really is, because she knows she cannot be happy filling the role of the mother-woman that society has created for her. She did not believe that she could break from this pattern because of the pressures of society, and ends up taking her own life. ShouldRead MoreThe Awakening Essay728 Words   |  3 PagesThe novel The Awakening by Kate Chopin takes place in the early 1920s on the Grand Isles of Louisiana. The Grand Isles is a resort for the wealthy. The theme of this novel is about a woman named Edna who awakens to a new life as she discovers her independence. In the novel Edna also awakens to her love for Robert Leburn and most importantly she awakens to the knowledge that her husband is not in control of her life. Edna and Mr. Pontelliers relationship begins to get worse after he leaves forRead MoreEssay The Awakening640 Words   |  3 Pages The Awakening, by Kate Chopin, tells one woman’s story of her attempt to awaken to her true wants and desires for her life. When Edna Pontellier spends the summer on Grand Isle, she begins to think beyond the role of wife and mother that she has played so far. She begins to think of herself as a separate person with independent thoughts and feelings. Her transformation is difficult and she has great trouble deciding what she really wants in life. Edna attempts to discard all of the traditional valuesRead More The Awakening Essay1091 Words   |  5 Pagesthe fact that an author is able to convey his/her message clearer and include things in the book that cannot be exhibited in a movie. For this reason, the reader of the book is much more effected than the viewer of the film. In the novella, The Awakening, by Kate Chopin, there is much more evidence of symbolism as well as deeper meaning than in the movie version of the book, Grand Isle. Chopin conveys her symbolic messages through the main character’s newly acquired ability to swim, through the birds