How Dreaming Leads to Edna’s Awakening

1410 Words6 Pages
The Awakening, by Kate Chopin, is set at the end of the nineteenth century and explores one woman’s struggle for self-discovery. The protagonist, Edna Pontellier, is confined by societal expectations to fulfill the social roles of being a wife and a mother. Edna is unsatisfied, and does not want to live in a patriarchal world where men have power over women. She longs for a life of independence and wishes to “awaken” to the world around her. Edna’s devotion to her persistent process of emotional, personal and social self-discovery, started with dreaming. This dreaming eventually makes her realize that there is a way of freeing herself from the oppression that she faced. Through Edna’s vision of a meadow, her growing awareness of the inequities in how her husband treats her, and through Mademoiselle Reisz`s music, one can see how Edna’s dreams transform her and she begins her journey of self-discovery. It is as though she is seeing herself for the first time and she is moving toward readiness to embrace real change; change that will lead her out of her despair, loneliness and alienation. Edna’s journey toward awakening consisted of four significant events, each symbolic of her courage to face her fear of the unknown and accept another way of being. Edna’s emerging consciousness came from swimming in the ocean for the first time, engaging in an affair, and re-entering the ocean for the last time. These events allowed Edna to let go of the confines of her previous life and have the courage to wait and be open to what was emerging from within. Overall, one can see how Edna’s dreams of self-actualization, lead her to her awakening where her process of self-discovery was actualized. Edna`s process of self-discovery begins with her dreams of self-awareness which eventually lead her to the exploration of herself and her desires. Edna`s first realization of wanting
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