The Awakening | Social Sensitivity
The Awakening has taken on a new significance since the advent of the women's movement. Literary debates have raged over the significance of Edna Pontellier's awakening, her suicide, and the conflict between motherhood and career for women in the nineteenth century. Many critics feel that Edna's suicide was an independent victory over society's limitations. Others feel that she killed herself because she felt defeated by society and did not want to disgrace her children.
Women's issues were still too new in the late 1800s for the book to have any impact at the time it was...
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