Kate Chopin's The Awakening
...oman’s discovery of her sexual and emotional freedom. Edna Pontellier is a high-society Creole woman that feels constricted by the expectations of her role as a wife and mother. In the novel, Edna has an “awakening” when her husband goes to New York and she sends her kids to stay with their grandmother. She falls in love with a man named Robert. Towards the end of the story, Robert and Edna profess their love to each other. Mrs. Pontellier says, “I would give up the unessential; I would give up my money, I would give up my life for my children; but I wouldn’t give up myself.” (Chopin 97). She says this right before she kills herself, because she realizes that she can never be who she wants to be and that she can never be truly free from the confines of society. She would rather die than have to conform to others expectations and norms. Women during Kate Chopin’s time were not writing about such controversial topics and this is what makes Chopin very important in shaping Feminist and American literature. Kate Chopin wrote about the private needs of women such as marriage, independence, individuality, and sexual freedoms. Many people had a harsh and critical reaction to The Awakening. Howard writes that, “When she published The Awakening in 1899, Kate Chopin startled her public with a frank portrayal of a woman’s sexual and spiritual awakening” (Howard). The stereotypical role of women in the late 1900’s and early 20th century was that they were inferior to men and that “women were religious, modest, passive, submissive, and domestic” (The American Women). The United States hadn’t even begun to accept women’s needs for public freedoms such as education, rights to vote, or freedom of speech yet, so Kate Chopin’s feminist masterpiece was considered offensive and scandalous. “The nation in 1899 had seen vast changes in the American way of life and action. But the idea of a true autonomy for women, or, more astounding yet-— a single sexual standard for men and women – was too much to imagine” (Howard). Chopin exposed to the world the inner thoughts of a woman. “In short, Mrs. Pontellier was beginning to realize her position in the universe as a human being, and to recognize her relations ...