Awakening by Kate ChopinEdna Pontelliers Triump in Creole Society
Edna Pontellier’s Triumph in Creole Society Kate Chopins The Awakening takes place during the late 1800s in New Orleans, Louisiana. The protagonist, Edna Pontellier, fights to obtain independence, which places her in opposition to society. Chopin uses Creole Society in the 1890s as a basis for her novel and expresses Creole society through Creole women, personal relationships, and etiquette. The Awakening is a book based on French Creoles and their lifestyle, which is portrayed throughout the novel. Edna’s society believes that a married woman needs to make both her husbands and childrens needs her first priority. ... Chopin focuses Edna’s triumph as the theme in The Awakening, as Edna unleashes her true identity in her society and her desire to throw identity away and live beyond Creole culture. ... Adel is the epitome of an ideal Creole woman. ... The fact that Adel thinks far in advance for the needs of her children illustrates the expectations of a mother in Creole society. Another characteristic of an ideal Creole women were that they give up everything for their children. ... Creole women have many talents, skills, and a special way of life. ... This exert highlights the distinct difference between Edna’s idea of motherhood and a Creole woman’s idea of motherhood. Edna does not make her children her first priority, and therefore is an outsider in Creole society. Edna does not fit in with the other Creole mothers; this difference eventually leads to Edna to rebel against her family. ... Edna, unlike other Creole women, does not subdue her opinions about raising a family in order to fit in with the other Creole mothers. Chopin successfully helps the reader understand a woman challenging the beliefs of a naïve society at the beginning of the twentieth century. From her refusal to sacrifice herself for her children in the beginning of the novel to her moving into her own house towards the end of the novel, the reader is effectively aware of the realities that women face in the early twentieth century individually and as a society (Birnbaum 303).