The Awakening

Edna felt herself to be in love with a famous tragedian, even kissing the "cold glass" of his picture when she was alone. However, Leonce Pontellier "pressed his suit with an earnestness and an...

When Edna learns finally to swim she gains great confidence in herself, her own 'powers' and 'strength': A feeling of exultation overtook her, as if some power of significant import had been...

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...

Though there are a few important conflicts in Kate Chopin's The Awakening, I believe the most significant conflict is Edna Pontellier's rebellion against the misogynist structures and customs of...

In the first few paragraphs of The Awakening, Edna Pontellier's relationship with her children is presented as distant, but generally positive. The children play under the trees by themselves and...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

Chopin often uses sound devices like alliteration and slant rhyme in order to arrest our attention and make the narrative seem to mimic its content. For example, in chapter VI, the narrator says,...

"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...

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...

Throughout The Awakening, as the title suggests, protagonist Edna Pontellier slowly realizes that she is not content with her situation in life. Edna is an upper-class white woman living in New...

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...

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...

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...

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...

Kate Chopin's characterization of the potential male antagonists -- Leonce Pontellier and Robert Lebrun -- seems to indicate that the antagonist is not a person but is, instead, the larger society...

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...

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...

The major conflict in Chopin's The Awakening has to do with Edna's feeling that she is restricted by her role as a wife and mother. She has a short romance with Robert Lebrun, and after this...

Kate Chopin'sThe Awakeningends with Edna Pontellier's suicide after a long period of self-realization. This self-realization leads her to conclude that life, as she has come to know it, does not...

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 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...

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...

A great section of this brilliant novel to look at in regards to conflict and the way that conflict emerges as a result of Edna's awakening comes in Chapter 11, which is when Edna asserts her will...

In The Awakening the theme of individuality is brought up through the discoveries that Edna Pontellier encounters along the way of trying to find herself as a person and, most importantly, as a...

Symbolism is one major literary technique used in Kate Chopin’s novel The Awakening. Irony is another. Throughout the book, Chopin uses irony in ways that surprise us, open our eyes, or make us...

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...

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...

The sea is an important symbol in Chopin's The Awakening. This phrase "the voice of the sea speaks to the soul" is repeated in this exact or a related form multiple times in the novel, and there is...

This novel is a story rich with thematic topics. Here are a few of the many ideas that Chopin was exploring in this novel. Once you have a thematic statement, then you can craft a thesis...

The story "The Yellow Wallpaper" and the novel The Awakening share a common theme: the subjugation of women toward the end of the nineteenth century. Both writings feature a female character that...

Edna's flashbacks reveal that she has always, consciously or not, questioned society's rules and the expectations placed on her as a female in the late-nineteenth century. The narrator describes...

Kate Chopin's The Awakening is part of America's literary movement called Regionalism, with the idea of place creating a strong element in the overall work's meaning. Set in Louisiana and the Grand...

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...

Alcee Arobin follows Edna around and spends a great deal of time with her while Mr. Pontellier is not home. At first it is simply a friendship, Edna takes no true interest in Alcee because he love...

First of all, diction is the author's choice of words, phrases, sentence structure, and figurative language that all work together to create the meaning of the text. Second, the narrator's voice...

In The Awakening, it appears that Edna's transformation begins to take place at night, specifically when she finds that she can swim. She has a moment of elation at the freedom she feels, and her...

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 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 Awakening is considered an example of literary realism because of its use of local color (already covered in detail by the other answers) and the ordinary, everyday nature of its characters....

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...

Edna struggles with a number of Creole attitudes and cultural norms. In the Creole culture, the men are dominant and women are viewed as possessions to be prized and displayed like trophies. The...

"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...

The diction, which is the author's word choice, is a great way to understand setting, which is the time and place in which a text occurs. Some examples of diction include all of the French language...

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...