The Awakening Suicide for Freedom PDF

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The Awakening Suicide for Freedom...

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The Awakening: Suicide for Freedom During the 19th Century, women had little to no power. Most women were unable to follow their dreams. In The Awakening b y Kate Chopin, Edna Pontellier hoped to be an artist. Unfortunately, Edna wasn’t able to follow her dreams due to her position as a woman, wife, and mother. In the end, Edna commits suicide by drowning herself in the sea. Throughout the story and Chopin’s other works, Chopin uses plot structure, symbols, and social context to lead to Edna’s suicide for freedom.  hopin uses plot structure to lead to Edna’s death. The theme of the In The Awakening, C story is conquering all to find herself. Edna discovers that she can be her own person. Edna’s entire awakening is her search for independence and rebirth as a woman. The story was written in third person point of view, but it focuses on Edna’s point of view more than anyone else’s. Through Edna’s point of view, she feels trapped by social expectations. “Edna had once told Madame Ratignolle that she would never sacrifice herself for her children, or for anyone… I would give my money, I would give my life for my children; but I wouldn’t give myself” (Chopin 1290).She had to devote her life for her family and define herself not as an individual, but as a wife and a mother. She is almost obsessed with the idea if individuality; she desires the freedom to do whatever she wants with her own life. In the Personal Property: Exchange Value and Female self in ‘The Awakening’ b y Margit Stange, she states, “‘I am no longer on of Mr. Pontellier’s possessions… She has withheld herself from her husband in order to give to herself”  he has to battle herself to change who she is. The main conflict throughout the story was (885). S freedom versus society. Edna is discovering her freedom amongst the expectations of society. She is coming to respect herself and accepting that she is simply not, nor will ever be the socially accepted woman that society expects her to be. Edna loves her children, but she is realizing that her identity as a person is too precious to allow it to revolve around the requirements of a domestic lifestyle. “The children appeared before her like her antagonists who had overcome her; who had overpowered and sought to drag her into the soul's slavery for the rest of her days” (Chopin 1343). Edna is unable to live like this in her happiness. She yearns for a different life, but she realizes she will never be able to obtain a different life, as she is bounded to her children. In order to free herself, her only option is death. Edna lets go of her worries that society and culture have granted her and gives herself over to death and freedom.  hopin uses symbols to foreshadow Edna’s death. She uses the sea In The Awakening, C and the birds to demonstrate her path towards her suicide.The sea symbolizes Edna’s freedom and her new life. It leads to her eternal freedom when she drowned in the water. Since water is known for cleansing and baptism, it can be conveyed as Edna’s rebirth. In the end, Edna goes to the sea, “The water was chill… The water was deep… the touch of the sea is sensuous, unfolding the body in its soft,close embrace” (Chopin 1344). This was her last stage of heer awakening. The sea was where she learned to swim and where she killed herself. I her viewpoint, the only way to escape her misery and social standing, was to kill herself. When she returns to the grand isle, the story creates a full circle. The island was her original awakening, and her final awakening. In the documentary, Kate Chopin: A Re-Awakening  by Louisiana Public Broadcasting, Barbara Ewell states, “Its spontaneity, and its physical demands opens up Edna to places in her heart and in her soul she'd lost contact with, maybe had never known were there.” When Edna swims, she escapes society’s norms and begins to feel free. The first time Edna could swim, she was gaining control over her body and becoming aware of her potential. She

realizes her body is hers, which awakens her physically, mentally, and emotionally. “The walk to the beach was no inconsiderable on, consisting as it did of a long, sandy path…” (Chopin 1263). This symbolizes all of her struggles and difficulties. The path to the sea was Edna’s long journey to her awakening. As Edna destroys herself, she is also reclaiming her life. She is asserting that her life is hers; she is refusing to sacrifice it on behalf of society. The birds symbolizes Edna’s life. Women in the 19th Century were trapped, or seen as property in their husband’s eyes. It shows how women were caged by society and conveyed the freedom Edna wanted to achieve. It demonstrates the distinct differences in Edna’s behavior and mental state at the beginning and end of the story. “A bird with a broken wing was beating in the air, reeling, fluttering, circling disabled down, down to the water” (Chopin 1343). This show show the birds’ death is a description of Edna’s death. The seagull represents Edna finally having the freedom she wanted so badly. It parallels her being “beaten down” and “battered” by the expectations of society and those of her family. In the beginning, the birds in the cage, said, “Allez vous-en! Allez vous-en! Sapristi!” (Chopin 1253). This symbolizes how Edna was caged. This was her original state: submissive, repeating only what it has been told, and trapped in a cage. The patriot gives the voice of Edna’s unspoken feelings. The caged birds represents the women in the Victorian Era, who were expected by society as playing no other roles but mothers and wives. In The Story of an Hour b y Kate Chopin Mrs. Louise Mallard is the protagonist. The story is told in third person omniscient point of view. This tells the complete story that’s not limited to the protagonist, Mrs. Mallard. She is told that her husband, Mr. Mallard, has died in a train accident. At first, she is sad, but later she realizes that she can be more independent and live for herself. Later on in the story, she accepts the fact that her husband is dead and her reaction changes to a more subtle reaction. Close to the ending of the story, she discovers that Mr. Mallard is alive. Then, Mrs. Mallard dies due to her heart condition. The theme of the story is the struggle for freedom of women in the 19th Century. It was hard for women to feel free during that time period. Mrs. Mallard was finally free. “When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease—of joy that kills” (Chopin 3). This means that her heart stopped when she saw that her husband was alive. She’s joyful because she is finally and officially free from her husband’s control-- through death. “...she was drinking in a very elixir of life through that open window” (Chopin 2). The open window symbolizes her freedom and the opportunities that are waiting for her after the funeral. “When she abandoned herself a little whispered word escaped her slightly parted lips. She said it over and over under her breath: ‘free, free, free!’” (Chopin 2). She’s free. Mrs. Mallard believe she will live for herself when she thinks her husband died. There is no more crying when she realizes that, after the funeral, she’ll be an independent woman. “She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister's arms. When the storm of grief had spent itself she went away to her room alone. She would have no one follow her” (Chopin 1). Crying was a part of Mrs. Mallard’s life with Brently ; she wasn’t happy in her marriage. Mr. Mallard treated his wife as inferior and not as equals. This connects to Edna Pontellier because they had to give up their life to gain their freedom. To conclude, women in the 19th Century had little to no power. Throughout the story and Chopin’s other works, Chopin uses plot structure, symbols, and social context to lead to Edna’s suicide for freedom. Edna yearns for a different life; her only option is death. In the story, the birds symbolizes Edna’s life; the sea symbolizes her final awakening. She lets go of her worries that her environment have granted her and gives herself over to death and freedom. In The Story of an Hour b y Kate Chopin, Mrs.  Mallard believed she could live for herself when she thought

her husband died. But, in turn of events, her husband was still alive. Then, Mrs. Mallard died from her heart condition. This way, like Edna, she was free from her husband and society through death.

Works Cited Chopin, Kate. The Awakening. Ed Gilbert and Gruber. Literature By Women. V  ol I. 3rd Ed. New York: Norton, 2007. Chopin, Kate. The Story of an Hour, archive.vcu.edu/english/engweb/webtexts/hour/. Stange, Margit. “Personal  Property: Exchange Value and Female self in The Awakening. ” The Longman Anthology of Women’s Literature. E  d. Mary K. DeShazer. New York: Longman, 2001.877-888. Print “The Re-Awakening.” PBS , Public Broadcasting Service, www.pbs.org/katechopin/transcript.html....