An Analysis Of Edna Pontellier's The Awakening

1161 Words5 Pages
In the novel the Awakening, by Kate Choplin women are expected to keep their feelings to themselves and only worry about caring for their families. These women are caged mocking birds, only speaking the conventions of society. Edna Pontellier is not a mocking bird but a parrot with a broken wing; she does not have as much interest in her family, as she is expected to be, she has desires and speaks her own language but is not strong enough to fly away. As the novel goes on Edna’s wing begins to heal as the real woman within picks at the lock to the cage. The Awakening displays the implications of self-expression through Edna’s interests in her own desires, moving into the pigeon house, and her suicide. In the 1980s women were not expected to take action toward their interests, or pursue their desires. Women did not display any unsatisfaction toward their marriage, nor verbalize their sexual…show more content…
Pontellier’s property. Edna partly believes that if she can prove her independence from her husband that Robert will want to be with her. She no longer cared about the needs of her husband she was fully lost in her own dreams. “Without even waiting for an answer from her husband regarding his opinions of wishes in the matter, Edna hastened her preporations for quitting her home on Esplanade street and moving into the little house around the block”(Choplin 84). Moving out of her husband’s house made her feel free, she didn’t want to be surrounded by her husband’s belongings, she wanted to be completely self-efficient. “Whatever was her own in the house, everything which she had acquired aside from her husband’s bounty, she caused transported to the other house, supplying simple and meager deficiencies from her own resources” (Choplin 84). Edna had removed herself from everything belonging to her husband, doing this made her feel like she was no longer part of his

More about An Analysis Of Edna Pontellier's The Awakening

Open Document