The Awakening - 1113 Words

It has been said that ignorance is bliss and if we do not know that something more exists, we do not yearn for it. It has also been said that the door to enlightenment and inner wisdom, once opened, can never be closed again. Many great philosophers and teachers have dealt with the idea of whether it is better to live a life of servitude and submission, or are we to pursue a life of personal happiness and emotional freedom. We are introduced to Edna Pontellier, a young woman of twenty-nine years who is married to an older, aristocratic man in his forties. They have two young children, who are cared for by servants, and they live a cultured and pampered life in New Orleans in the late eighteen-hundreds. The family is spending the†¦show more content†¦His absence creates a void and she feels he has taken the brightness from her life. Edna keeps her feelings to herself as she has been accustomed to doing all of her life. She awakens to the knowing that she would give up her money, her life for her children but, she would never give up herself again. Returning to New Orleans she goes through the motions of living, appearing ill and lifeless and longs for life’s delirium. She returns to her love of painting and begins to spend her days in the studio by herself. Her husband is rude to her and belittles her talent because he is angry and feels she has deserted her duties to him. She ha s upset the balance of their relationship. Meanwhile her husband seeks the advice of a doctor. He cannot understand his wife’s new found â€Å"rights of women† attitude and finds himself wanting to be abusive to her. Her husband leaves on an extended trip away and she moves into a small cottage, alone with one servant, and sends the children to their grandparents. After meeting with Edna, the doctor senses her unhappiness. He knows she desires another man and hopes it is not Alcee Arobin, another womanizer known for his reputation of testing the morals of married women. She seeks out a pianist, Madame Reisz, whom she befriended on the island and, who is in contact with Robert. She reads a letter he wrote to the pianist where he admits his love for Edna. Edna appears to have a similar relationship with Arobin as sheShow 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. Books like The Awakening, give us an inside look at how women were treated around 100 years ago. 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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