growaw Edna Pontellier’s Identity in Kate Chopins The Awakening :: Chopin Awakening Essays

Identity in The Awakening   Kate Chopins The Awakening is about a womans evolution sense of identity. The novel takes place on an island south of new-made siege of Orleans and in New Orleans. Edna Pontellier is 28 years old when she wakes up. Her married man Leonce Pontellier is much older than she - forty years old. The Awakening opens when Mr. Pontellier - a businessman- is wild by the noise some parrots ar doing. They repeat Allez vous-en which means go away. It sounds such as an invitation to Edna to leave her cage of marriage. This is what she is doing in steps passim the novel. The parrot image is very interesting because parrots can be teach to talk, and they repeat only what someone taught them. Edna refuses more and more to follow the rules women are trained in. She starts to look for a self-determined life. In Chapter VI Chopin writes Mrs. Pontellier was beginning to derive her position in the universe as a human being. She realizes this after going to the beach with Robert for a bath in the sea. The sea and liquified play an important mathematical function in this novel. The sea is an archetype of ending and rebirth. In the beginning Edna experiences the touch of the sea as sensuous, and she seems to feel renewed. At the end she enters the water of the Gulf naked and feels like some newborn creature. When she dies, it seems that death and rebirth have met and the circle has closed. ( Teachers comment Something is very wrongly with the grammar here). To underline that Edna is different from the typical women at Grand Isle and New OrleansChopin creates the character of Adele Ratignolle. She is described as the embodiment of the mother- woman. She seems to accept and enjoy her role as a wife and mother. She knows her duties and (in XIV) leaves Edna alone because Monsieur Ratignolle is alone at floor and he detested above all things to be left alone. When Edna tells Adele that she would neer sacrifice herself for her children, Ad ele does not understand. She fulfills her role as a mother and wife, whereas Edna wants to typeset her role new. She asks in Chapter XIII How many years have I slept? and Robert mentions later All but the hundred years when you were sleeping.