Respone To Kate Chopin's The Awakening

In 1899 Kate Chopin created a lot of controversy when she published her work The Awakening. She tells a story of a late 19th century woman who actively seeks out her desires and breaks away from the mold of what it meant to be a woman in that era.

In the late 19th century, the main expectations of women were to be submissive towards their husbands and to take care of their children. Women were expected to be very sophisticated and proper. If they seemed to ignore any of their womanly duties in any way they were often shunned from the rest of society.

Edna Pontellier, the main character of The Awakening is different than most of the other women from the story because she knows what she wants and is not willing to except the life that was laid out for her. Kate Chopin took much criticism in writing this story. Many people thought it to be very immoral and scandalous because talking of suicide and adultery during that time was very taboo. The fact of the matter is that this story was just way ahead of its time. There is no doubt that many people in every society felt trapped and waited for one little spark to awake them and allow them to live the life they felt would suite them best; the only thing stopping them of course was their fear that society would reject their choice.

In The Awakening Chopin begins the story giving the backgrounds of each character and slowly reveals that the main character Edna, is very different from the rest of the characters. She's not a model mother or wife in the sense that she devotes herself to taking care of her family. In fact, there were instances when Edna would often cry herself to sleep simply because she felt trapped and did not want to take care of her children or listen to her husband.

Chopin then began to show that the marriage between Edna and her husband lacked any communication, which made Edna very lonely. Mr. Pontellier was often gone most of the week and when he was home he paid very little attention to Edna. Edna did love her children very much, but just lacked the motherly instincts that all the other mothers possessed in the story and was often very neglectful towards them. When her children were gone they were often out of sight and out of mind because she viewed them as a hindrance to her freedom. Throughout the story she would often leave them in the care of a servant or whoever would look after them so that she could paint or spend time with her love interest Robert Lebrun.

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