How Does Being Female or Male Affect Your Reading of the Awakening
Kate Chopin'southward The Awakening was a assuming slice of fiction in its fourth dimension, and protagonist Edna Pontellier was a controversial graphic symbol. She upset many nineteenth century expectations for women and their supposed roles. One of her most shocking actions was her denial of her part as a mother and wife. Kate Chopin displays this rejection gradually, only the concept of motherhood is major theme throughout the novel.
Edna is fighting against the societal and natural structures of motherhood that force her to exist defined by her championship as wife of Leonce Pontellier and female parent of Raoul and Etienne Pontellier, instead of being her own, self-defined individual. Through Chopin's focus on two other female characters, Adele Ratignolle and Mademoiselle Reisz, Edna'due south options of life paths are exhibited.
These women are the examples that the men effectually Edna dissimilarity her with and from whom they obtain their expectations for her. Edna, withal, finds both role models lacking and begins to come across that the life of freedom and individuality that she wants goes against both society and nature. The inevitability of her fate equally a male person-defined creature brings her to a land of despair, and she frees herself the simply way she can, through suicide.
In the earth of Edna Pontellier one tin either be divers by men or live a life split up from the rest of society. "Women [can] either become wives and mothers . . . or exiles" (Papke 39). Adele Ratignolle is the epitome of the male-defined wife and female parent. She is a "mother-woman."
"[The mother-women] were women who idolized their children, worshipped their husbands and esteemed it a holy privilege to efface themselves as individuals and grow wings every bit ministering angels" (Chopin 10).
Adele is described equally beingness a adequately talented pianist, even so even the very personal act of creating music is performed for the sake of her children. "She was keeping upward her music on business relationship of the children, she said; because she and her hubby both considered it a means of brightening the domicile and making it attractive" (Chopin 27). Adele also brings abiding attention to her pregnancy in ways Edna finds to be somewhat inappropriate. Adele is very proud of her title of mother, and i might say maternity is what she was fated for.
Edna finds that the life of the mother-adult female fails to satisfy her want for an existence free from definition. She pities Adele and finds herself unsuited for the lifestyle of the mother-woman. "It was non a condition of life which fitted her, and she could see in it only an appalling and hopeless ennui. She was moved by a kind of commiseration for Madame Ratignolle" (Chopin 63). Adele represents all four attributes of True Womanhood as defined by the Cult of Domesticity.
The "four fundamental virtues [were] piety, purity, submissiveness, and domesticity. Put them together and they spelled mother, girl, sis, wife—woman" (Welter qtd. Papke 11). This definition of self in connection with others is what prevents Edna from assuasive herself to follow Adele's example. She tries to explain these reservations virtually loss of identity to Adele. "I would give my money, I would give my life for my children, but I wouldn't requite myself" (Chopin 53). Adele fails to understand Edna's search for individuality, and Edna must await elsewhere for empathy.
Mademoiselle Reisz is the exile. In her beginning introduction, she is displayed "dragging a chair in and out of her room, and at intervals objecting to the crying of a baby, which a nurse in the adjoining cottage was endeavoring to put to sleep" (Chopin 28). Mademoiselle Reisz is a woman devoid of motherly tendencies and sexuality. She is physically unappealing and seems to have no romantic by, present, or future.
Her master trait is her extraordinary musical talent, which she, in contrast to Adele, cultivates only for herself. Edna confides in her a desire to get a painter, and Mademoiselle Reisz cautions her nigh the nature of the creative lifestyle. "The artist must possess the courageous soul," she says, "the soul that dares and defies" (Chopin 71). Mademoiselle Reisz believes that merely through a life of solitude and a disregard for society can an artist define herself and create real art.
Edna enjoys a rewarding friendship with Mademoiselle Reisz, yet, she finds the solitary creative lifestyle to be imperfect due to its lack of sexuality. Considering Mademoiselle Reisz is the only creative person-woman Edna is familiar with, Edna sees her lifestyle as representative of all artist-women. Mademoiselle Reisz's life is deprived of sexuality, and due to her relationship with Adele, Edna has experienced a sexual awakening.
"There may have been . . . influences, both subtle and apparent, working in their several means to induce [Edna] to [loosen a little her curtain of reserve]; but the most obvious was the influence of Adele Ratignolle" (Chopin 16).
Through Adele's intimate touch, a level of affection that Edna is unfamiliar with, Edna is able to open up herself to the possibilities of sexual arousal. Later this potential has been brought to her attention, Edna cannot imagine herself living the asexual, creative lifestyle of Mademoiselle Reisz, even if it might be a way to find the individuality that she is searching for. "While Mademoiselle Reisz might escape the conflicts within her ain sex by absconding to an surface area of sexlessness . . . Edna [is] unprepared to do this—because she simply enjoys sex too much" (Killeen 423).
Edna sees that "to exist a mother woman is to abjure self for the sake of others; to be an artist woman is to live celibate, to requite all one'south love to expression" (Papke 82). Edna yearns for a more physical relationship, where she can be touched and pleasured, so she rejects Mademoiselle Reisz as a function model.
Edna attempts to discover self-definition by creating a third lifestyle pick and showtime to act like a man. She sees that men are immune to live lives of sexual fulfillment, while not being expected to bear or care for their children, and develop a personality and private self through participation in the business organization world. Edna kickoff finds a sense of masculine freedom when Leonce goes to New York and Raoul and Etienne go to Iberville to stay with their grandmother. "A radiant peace settled upon her when she at last found herself lonely. Fifty-fifty the children were gone" (Chopin 80).
Edna explores her newfound lifestyle by taking upwardly gambling at the racetrack and beginning to sell her paintings. Entering the earth of commercialism is a big footstep in her search for independence because until that signal she had been, like about nineteenth century women, "the sympathetic and supportive bridge between the individual realm of the home and the virtually exclusively male world of the public market place" (Papke 10). By infiltrating this masculine world, Edna is able to generate an income all her own and employ the coin she makes to rent a firm.
The dove house, as she calls it, is a identify far away from any reminders of her family life. Her final attempt to acquire the unfettered life of a man comes in the form of her matter with Alcee Arobin. In this human relationship, Edna samples masculine sexual freedoms; nonetheless, something in Edna'southward nature makes it impossible for her to exist fully satisfied with the masculine lifestyle.Continued on Next Page »
Source: http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/657/kate-chopins-the-awakening-struggle-against-society-and-nature
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