At the center of THE AWAKENING is Edna Pontellier, a woman of the 19th century who rebels against social constraint of that time and acknowledges her sexual desires. She does even more than just acknowledging she has the courage and the inner strength to act upon her feelings and desires. She has the courage to break all conventions of society and to discover her true self, to discover that she is more than just a wife and a mother, roles that society had given her. Edna discovers her identity as an independent woman and breaks through the roles assigned by the patriarchal society.

Victorian society was very strict and women’s place was very clear. Chopin uses her characters to rebel against this strictness; her characters are passionate and unconventional women but none of them rebels as openly as Edna does.

Feminism emerged as a social movement in reaction to the way women were treated in American society and against the inequality between men and women regarding their rights. Educated and intelligent women started to act together for a common cause: equality of men and women. They tried to raise consciousness of the discrimination taking

“Chopin was not an active feminist, but represented sides of the human psyche which had previously been repressed under the guise of “moral” fiction. She saw and enjoyed the ambiguity and androgyny of “woman” but was smart enough to realize that small changes (moving into “pigeon-houses”) would not be enough to allow a place in society for a new female identity, whatever form it may take.”(Martin)

With Adele, Edna discovers an intimacy she did not know with her husband or with anyone else, she sees that women can have meaningful and intimate relationships with other women. This discovery leads her to realize that such intimacy can be achieved with men as well. So she tries to find it with Robert.

Edna’s understanding of an inner, autonomous spirit, defies the belief of that time that women were property of their husbands, serving only specific roles as mothers and wives. Adele Ratignolle embodies everything about femininity and womanhood of the last century. She is devoted to her husband, who adores her, gives birth every two years, and adorns herself with lavish clothing and jewelry. She depends on her family, not herself, and is notable for her beauty. She is everything Edna does not want to be. By creating Adele, Chopin creates a contrasting image for Edna. Adele is what Victorian society expects from a woman and what feminist critics so much detest.

Although Chopin hints that Edna is one of the victims of the fight for gender equality, the hero herself is not yet aware of it. Edna is a smart woman and not really naïve but she is not strong enough to survive the battle. She is placed in the situation of choosing between independence and love. If Edna's break with her husband represents a “type of regression rather than growth” (Martin 22), then we can see The Awakening as a tale of frustration. The New Woman wants freedom, and deserves it, but has not been given the skills necessary for survival. Images of birds, from the caged bird at the story's beginning to the symbolic one of the pigeon-house into which Edna retreats suggest that the New Woman is a bird with broken wings. In the best way she knows how to escape her caged domestic life, Edna chains herself to another man because she is unable to choose freedom in the way later feminists would claim she must.

place in society because of the way women were treated.

I believe that Chopin recognized the changes feminists were asking for were more than society could handle at that time. In The Awakening, she tries to demonstrate that a woman trying to find freedom and independence in Victorian society would hardly achieve it completely. The only way her hero manages to become completely free is through death. But Chopi

Some topics in this essay:
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