The Awakening Essay

Awakening paper
Throughout The Awakening, Edna is trying to wake up and discover who she is and set herself free. Her husband and the rules of society are casting a spell against her which sets up many restraints. Edna also is on a quest to find her true soul mate. She has a husband named Leonce and she has had flirtatious relationships with Robert and Aerobin. In her time period getting seen with other men was looked down on. In all of these men she found something different each one had a component that completed her but she could never be fully satisfied with one. Robert is said to be Edna’s soul mate they have a natural connection whereas Aerobin provides the excitement and physical needs. Her husband Leonce supply’s Edna with shelter and stability. In The Awakening there is a dominant theme of identity story’s such as Sleeping Beauty, “Out of the Cradle, Endlessly Rocking”, “Yellow Wallpaper”, and “Aunt Jennifer's Tigers” all have the same reoccurring theme. All these works portray a similar message of someone being confined withing themselves or society.
This theme of Identity is used in The Awakening many times. Edna was born in the wrong time period, she doesn’t like the hidden rules society sets. She is a bold, strong, and   outspoken female motivated by art, passion, and life. In her time period she was not able to fully express her self without judgment. Edna was a wife and a mother, she understood of these tasks but had a hard time accepting the label that follows. A females main purpose was ultimately to be a 'mother-woman'. Edna says, “The mother-women seemed to prevail that summer at Grand Isle. It was easy to know them, fluttering about with extended, protecting wings when any harm, real or imaginary, threatened their precious brood. They were women who idolized their children, worshiped their husbands, and esteemed it a holy privilege to efface themselves as individuals and grow wings as ministering angels” (Chopin). The ideal women in Edna's era...