The Awakening

In this chapter, we learn that music has always tended to have a predictable effect on Edna: it inspires pictures within her imagination. However, this time, Edna "waited in vain" for the pictures...

Mademoiselle Reisz is a key character in Kate Chopin'sThe Awakening. She represents two contrasting models of womanhood in the novel. The other model, that of the "mother-woman," is represented by...

I would describe Edna as a good mother, through the lens of 21st-century motherhood, though she is an atypical one; she's not the overly-nurturing and abundantly maternal type. She insists on...

A paradox is a statement that appears on a superficial level to contradict itself. Edna's paradox, and her suicide, has less to do with her mothering abilities and her attachment to her children...

In Kate Chopin's The Awakening, her protagonist, Edna, experiences an increasing awareness that she is not happy, although she is not certain why. When she finally does realize that she does not...

The "outward life" describes the social persona—the mask individuals assume when out in the world among other people. This persona is taken on so an individual can comfortably engage in society...

The central idea of Kate Chopin's novel The Awakening can be identified in the title of the work. Edna Pointellier, the protagonist of the story, experiences both a psychological/emotional...

Early in the novel, we see Edna begin to "awaken" to the truth of her inner self, as well as to the ways that self does not and cannot fulfill the expectations of the society around her. Edna...

When, in Kate Chopin’s 1899 short story The Awakening, Edna Pontellier declares in Chapter 36 that she is “. . . no longer one of Mr. Pontellier’s possessions to dispose of or not . . .,” she is...

Edna Pontellier, the protagonist of Kate Chopin’s novel The Awakening, is married to Léonce Pontellier and has two kids with him. Léonce is a rich businessman who makes enough money for his family...

When Edna learns to swim, her perception of its significance and import alerts her to the contrast between the way she conceives of her own experiences and the way she is seen by others. While she...

In the final pages, Edna returns to Grand Isle and almost immediately walks to the beach where she learned to swim. At this point, the ocean seems to represent both temptation and her own sexual...

"The pigeon-house pleased her. It at once assumed the intimate character of a home, while she herself invested it with a charm which it reflected like a warm glow. There was with her a feeling of...

Mother-woman" is not so much a metaphor as it is a title and a statement of the role of women in Creole society. In Creole society at the turn of the century it was considered the ideal...

In saying that she would be willing to give up her life, but not herself, for her children, Edna is making a distinction between the life of the body and the life of the spirit. Edna would be...

In chapter 19 of Kate Chopin's The Awakening we witness Edna Pontellier growing steadily careless about her role as a wife and mother, and more interested in her self-discovery. This...

The significance of water in The Awakening is shown by Edna’s entering the water when she learns to swim and again at the end, when she swims out too far. In addition, as she and Robert contemplate...

"The Story of an Hour" and The Awakening are joined in being centrally about a middle-class woman coming to an acute awareness of her own desire for autonomy and freedom and having, at least for...

The narrator tells us that the arrival of Edna's father "was in the nature of a welcome disturbance; it seemed to furnish a new direction for her emotions." However, "She was not very warmly or...

There is evidence of at least two possible allusions in the second part of Kate Chopin's novel, The Awakening. In Chapter 28 – “…comprehend the significance of life, that monster made up of beauty...

I would consider her treatment of her children when she is alive as kind of begign neglect. They don't seem to be suffering for the way they are treated. Each year I have students comment on the...

Robert influences Edna's awakening in that, with him, she learns what it feels like to desire another and to be desired. With her husband, she is conscious that she often through habit, [...]...

Ralph Waldo Emerson’s philosophy prioritizes nature and independence. In “Nature,” Emerson details the wonders of the natural world and its transcendent qualities. He famously describes an...

"The Awakening" is widely thought of as one of the first overtly feminist novels. Published in 1899, it was censored for content and considered too smutty for public reading. The protagonist, Edna...

Both "The Story of an Hour" and The Awakening are feminist pieces written by Kate Chopin. Both texts explore the idea of women's roles in society and how women resist these roles and standards...

Adèle Ratignolle is Edna's friend but also her foil, or opposite. Adèle is content, as Edna is not, with being a wife and mother. She is glad to subordinate her own needs to her family....

Edna Pontellier has long sought to be free in the oppressive society in which she lives. Her husband, Leonce, is regarded as a good husband, but he is oblivious to her true feelings and enjoys a...

In chapter VII of The Awakening, by Kate Chopin, we find Edna Pontellier gazing at the ocean, realizing that she has always been "different." By different it is meant that she has never had the...

In Kate Chopin's The Awakening, the action of the story takes place in New Orleans and Grand Isle. The story opens with Edna in Grand Isle, which was a resort town about an hour outside of New...

Edna Pontellier's awakening to a greater sense of personal freedom seems to take great strides in her encounters with other people who model or demonstrate to her that freedom in their own...

The Awakening is told from a third-person omniscient point of view. It is tempting to say that it is limited omniscient because the narrator spends so much time detailing Edna's thoughts and...

Chapter XVII of The Awakening marks the Pontelliers' return to New Orleans after their summer in Grand Isle. During the summer, Edna's "awakening" has begun, as she starts feeling uneasy with the...

You ask what a literary foil is, which characters serve as foils in the text, and what their relationships with Edna might illuminate. To begin, a foil is a character who possesses traits that...

This scene is meant to create not just foreshadowing, but also the overall sense of mediocrity that looms around Edna's life. While she has all that she needs in life, she clearly has not lived up...

Edna’s reaction to Robert’s impending departure to Mexico is angry astonishment. Look in chapter 15 (it might be labeled “Chapter XV” in your copy of the book), and find the second paragraph, the...

At the end of Kate Chopin's The Awakening, Edna Pontellier walks out into the sea at Grand Isle. She swims again, recalling the freedom that she felt when she learned how to swim for the first time...

One of the first lengthy descriptions of Alcee Arobin in Kate Chopin's short novel The Awakening appears in Chapter 25 and reads as follows (with key words placed in bold): He was a familiar...

In addition to the previous answer, it is important to understand that Madame Ratignolle is serving as a character foil for Edna Pontellier. A character foil is a character who, when juxtaposed...

The term "local color" is typically used to describe American literature works published toward the end of the Civil War, circa 1860. These works feature a focus on the unique features of people...

Kate Chopin's The Awakening focuses on the development of the protagonist, Edna Pontellier. Her growth is also juxtaposed to two other major female characters in the novel: Mademoiselle Reisz and...

Chopin used the image of the sea and the ocean to represent change. Initially in Chapter Six, the sea represents her sexual awakening and the beginning of Edna’s self discovery. She falls in love...

You are right to ask this question about the setting of this story and the way that it impacts the protagnist. What is notable is the way in which Edna stays in many different houses throughout...

The concept of "mother-woman" is found in chapter four of The Awakening by Kate Chopin. This phrase is used by Léonce Pontellier to describe the woman his wife, Edna, is not. For example, when one...

This reflects rather poorly on Edna as a mother. Her children appear to her here not just as encumbrances but as 'antagonists' actively opposing her, indeed oppressing her. The fact that she wants...

There are several contrasts between the two relationships. These are partly due to the personalities of all persons involved, the goals of both relationships, and the way they treat one another....

Obviously, by the late 1800s, slavery has been outlawed, but we still see that most people of color discussed (or briefly described) in the novel are servants and are only defined, really, by their...