Nature Versus Nurture; June And Edna’s Search For

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Nature versus Nurture; June and Edna’s Search for Identity In almost all of the novels we’ve read this term, in some form or another, there has been a search for identity. Looking closely at June Kashpaw from Love Medicine and Edna Pontellier from The Awakening, we find that their search ended with them taking their own lives. Among many contrasts in these two characters, there are two distinct similarities: both chose to abandon their families in search of fulfillment and both ended their lives by sacrificing themselves to nature. There are thematic similarities behind June’s walk into the snow as that of Edna’s final swim. During her summer at Grand Isle, Edna Pontellier begins to explore a side of her consciousness that before was buried in domesticity. “She could not have told why she was crying. Such experiences as the foregoing were not uncommon in her married life. They seemed never before to have weighed much against the abundance of her husband’s kindness and a uniform devotion which had come to be tacit and understood.” (Chopin 9) As the title suggests, there is an awakening taking place over that summer. Edna begins to pay attention to the things that make her feel happy, excited, aroused, strong and powerful. “In short, Mrs. Pontellier was beginning to realize her position in the universe as a human being, and to recognize her relations as an individual to the world within and about her.” (Chopin 15) She finally finds the courage to abandon her fear the evening that Mademoiselle Reisz’s playing moved her to tears by swimming out into the surf for the first time. “A feeling of exultation overtook her, as if some power of significant import had been given her to control the working of her body and her soul. She grew daring and reckless, overestimating her strength. She wanted to swim far out, where no woman had swum before.” (Chopin 27)

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