The novel The Awakening takes place in the late 19th century during the Industrial Revolution and the Women's Rights Movement. The entire basis of the story is around the feminist movement and it quite crucial to the plot. The novel opens on Grand Isle, which was a popular summer vacation spot for the wealthy citizens of New Orleans. The story opens as Edna Pontellier is vacationing with her husband, Leonce, and their children at the cottages of Madame Lebrum ... freeing herself from her harsh loveless life. Her need for independence in the time of women's suffrage had left her cold, and sui...

• Word Count: 1694
• Approx Pages: 7

... a lifeless subsistence. Edna's exploration and discovery of the sea is the definitive force responsible for her awakening. Throughout the novel, Chopin cleverly weaves images of birds within the plot as a symbol of entrapment and the individualized yearning to spread one's wings and fly away from confines of human supremacy. There are references to caged birds which serve as a constant reminder of Edna's symbolic "encagment. This theme of "encagment" is analogous ... to the notion of entrapment that runs rampant through the short story "The Yellow ... ...

• Word Count: 2022
• Approx Pages: 8
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... upon and overpowering her," (558) and she is "broken" from the pressures of her society. Ironically, the water exhausts, presses, and overpowers her as well. Perhaps for Edna, given her place in time, there was no alternative, and maybe this is the lesson Kate Chopin was trying to teach. Unlike the belief of many, Chopin does not compromise the theme, the awakening of individuality, in her novel, The Awakening, with ... its fateful ending. Edna finally understands her place in her surroundings, and she comes to the decision that she would rather take herself out of ... the game rather t...

• Word Count: 2488
• Approx Pages: 10

... one can learn very valuable lessons. To begin with, fiction books serve as a reminder of the consequences that can occur for one's arrogant actions. Throughout the three stories, actions and their consequences catchin up to the character are a recurring theme. Macbeth is a King who has been manipulated to believe anything the witches tell him. They have told him that no "woman-born " man can harm him ... . When he is confronted with Macduff for a fight, he undermines him and arrogantly says: "Yet I will try the last. Before my body I throw my warlike shield. Lay on, Macduff, And damn'd be...

• Word Count: 2192
• Approx Pages: 9
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School