Essay Comparing The Awakening and Story of an Hour

She leaves the care of her children to her grandmother, abandoning them and her husband when she leaves to live in the pigeon-house. To her, leaving her old home with Léonce is very important to her freedom. Almost everything in their house belonged to him, so even if he were to leave, she would still feel surrounded by his possessions. She never fully becomes free of him until she physically leaves the house. That way, Edna has no ties whatsoever to that man. Furthermore, Edna indulges in more humanistic things such as art and music. She listens to Mademoiselle Reisz’s playing of the piano and feels the music resonate throughout her body and soul, and uses it as a form of escapism from the world. Based on these instances, Edna acts almost like a very young child, completely disregarding consequences and thinking only about what they want to do experience most at that moment. However, to the reader this does not necessarily appear “bad”, but rather it is seen from the perspective of a person who has been controlled by others their entire life and wishes to break free from their grasp. In a way, she is enacting a childlike and subconscious form of revenge by disobeying all known social constructs of how a woman should talk, walk, act, and interact with others.

When looking at many novels the reader tends to look at whether or not the author has sympathy with the characters. Within the two stories The Awakening and Their Eyes Were Watching God, the author has sympathy for one of the characters but not the other. The two stories both have main characters that struggle with their own existence in life, but in The Awakening the author had more sympathy for Edna. In Their Eyes Were Watching God the author tends to be non-sympathetic toward all the male characters except for Edna’s third husband, Tea Cake.

Another reason Mademoiselle Reisz is significant to Edna is because she is the only one who knows about and Robert and Edna’s love. Mademoiselle explains Robert’s love for Edna, “ It is because he loves you, poor fool, and is trying to forget you, since you are not free to listen to him or belong to him ” (95). Edna’s love for Robert is the reason why she quickly becomes uninvolved with her family and the life she is socially supposed to have. She does what she wants with disregard to anything her husband has to say.

Edna said to Robert, “I am no longer one of Mr. Pontellier’s possessions to dispose of or not. I give myself where I choose. If he were to say, ‘Here, Robert, take her and be happy; she is yours,’ I should laugh at you both” (Chopin 139). Prior to her saying that to him, Robert was talking about how he wished that Mr. Pontellier would set his wife free. This implied that he also viewed Edna as a possession of Leonce’s and when Edna explained that she did not want to belong to anyone, he did not understand. When Robert and Edna hit a bump in the road in their relationship, Robert immediately fled and left Edna a note saying that he was leaving forever. This shows that Robert wasn’t considering the way that leaving would make Edna feel and that even though he loved her, he took the easy way out for himself. Instead of accepting the independence that Edna sought, he ran away. Robert was selfish throughout the story by loving and accepting Edna only when it was convenient for him, and then escaping when things got

In Chapter 8, Madame Ratignolle pulls Robert aside and asks him to leave Edna alone. She explains that Edna,” Is not one of us; she is not like us. She might make the unfortunate blunder of taking you seriously.” Chopin’s use of repetition in Adele’s dialogue puts emphasis on Edna’s uniqueness and labels her as an outcast. Adele sees Edna drifting further and further away from the social norms of their accustomed society and wishes to stop her before its too late. Chopin also uses this scene to foreshadow Robert’s unwillingness to commit to Edna as he brushes off Madame Ratignolle’s warning, seeing his relationship with Edna as a fling rather than being the passionate lover Edna craves.

“There was not one but ready to follow when he lead the way.” Even though Robert is not around most of the time, he influences Edna more than he realizes. “Mrs. Pontellier was beginning to realize her place her position in the world as a human being.” He essentially makes Edna second guess her marriage and the possibility of leaving her children behind. Robert brings Edna out of her shell and makes her more comfortable around others particularly standing up to her husband. “I don’t wish to go in, and I don’t intend to. Don’t speak to me like that again; I shall not answer you.” Robert shows Edna that he is connected to her and she falls for him almost instantly because that is what she has been missing while being married to Leonce. “We shall love each other… Nothing else in the world is of any consequence.” Despite the fact they have never been involved in any physical way, Robert knows that he feels more for Edna than any other women he has encountered. So he decides to run away from the truth and goes to Mexico to keep from having to show Edna his true love for her. Ultimately, Robert influenced Edna severely because she was second guessing her marriage, falling in love with him and even became friends with Mademoiselle Reisz through him. And she sadly even committed suicide in the end because she couldn’t deal with the hurt of being without

The Awakening, by Kate Chopin, is the story of a woman who is seeking freedom. Edna Pontellier feels confined in her role as mother and wife and finds freedom in her romantic interest, Robert Lebrun. Although she views Robert as her liberator, he is the ultimate cause of her demise. Edna sees Robert as an image of freedom, which brings her to rebel against her role in society. This pursuit of freedom, however, causes her death. Chopin uses many images to clarify the relationship between Robert and Edna and to show that Robert is the cause of both her freedom and her destruction.

Edna is embarrassed that she took him so seriously and she writes him back stating she thought nothing of it . He takes this as a green light and continues to flirt with her. Edna continues to visit Mademoiselle Reisz During one visit Edna informed the madame that she would be renting out a small house and start her painting career.Mademoiselle Reisz nd Edna both are confused by this sudden notion.As usual, the madame gives the most recent f Roberts letter to Edna . She is shocked when she find out Robert is coming back to New Orleans . Edna confesses her love for Robert. Full of joy she goes home and sends her children bonbon and writes a cheerful letter to Leone telling of her intent to move .Later that evening Alcee visits and he and Edna find themselves alone . Alcee kisses her and she responds by grasping his head. After he left she felt bad that the kiss was not motivated by love

First, she thinks about how the color seems to have gone out of her life since Robert left and how she constantly wants to talk about him with other people. Frequently, she goes to Madame Lebrun's apartment and looks at baby pictures of Robert, seeing how the child developed into the man. Once, when Madame Lebrun receives a letter from Robert, Edna looks at it and reads it as if it were a precious artifact. In the postscript to the letter, Robert mentions Edna and a book that they had been reading together, and Edna feels jealous that Robert did not write directly to her. Everyone, including her husband, assumes that Edna misses Robert and considers it natural that she does so. Leónce mentions seeing Robert in the city, and Edna grills him about Robert's appearance and behavior. She does not consider it odd that she speaks of Robert with her husband because she feels like she always has private thoughts that she keeps to herself and that concern no one. She remembers a conversation she once had with Madame Ratignolle, in which she asserted that while she would sacrifice herself for her children, she would never give herself‹that is, that she would never surrender her innermost being to anyone. Madame Ratignolle doesn't really understand her and argues that it is the greatest sacrifice

She married Leonce not because she loved him but because she could not refuse his admiration and persistence. This marriage thrusts Edna into a foreign culture. She questions her role as a mother because she is different from the typical Creole "mother-woman." Edna defies the central perception that women are mothers first

"It is worth noting that Edna does not face any explicit oppresion. She is merely expected to run the house, care for the children and do her best to please her husband. Nevertheless, she finds the role unbearable. She cannot give her life, her identity to others. It is better to die" (Aull). However, this almost methodical way of life affected Edna worse than many other women. Others, such as Adele Ratignolle, who is described as the perfect Creole "mother-woman," accepted their female roles with enthusiasm. She represents the perfect woman according to society, which is what Edna does not want to be.

In Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour”, Louise Mallard is caught in a cold marriage and a constrictive house. The same goes for Sarah Penn in Mary Wilkins Freeman “The Revolt of “Mother.’” Despite the fact that both stories share the topics of imprisonment and control, physically and inwardly, the ladies in the stories have diverse responses to their circumstances. Sarah battles the confinements without holding back, taking her opportunity, while Mrs. Mallard adopts a motionless strategy and is just liberated through the death of Mr. Mallard.

You got me sippin' on something I can't compare to nothing I've ever known, I'm hoping That after this fever I'll survive I know I'm acting a bit crazy Strung out, a little bit hazy Hand over heart, I'm praying That I'm gonna make it out alive The bed's getting cold and you're not here

Through symbolically and ironically suggesting that gender definitions delimit the feminine self, the opening of “The Story of an Hour” hints of the tragedy that pervades the tale.  Because of Mrs. Mallard’s “heart trouble,” her sister and her husband’s friend rush to her side to break the news of her husband’s death in a gentle manner (644).  On a literal level, Louise Mallard’s condition suggests that she has a congenital

Kate Chopin’s The Awakening despite being an anecdote of a woman’s path of self-discovery, is also a story of a woman’s downfall on her search for independence. Chopin uses religion to emphasize Edna Pontellier’s “sinful” desires in the novel. Without religion influencing both the characters and symbolism, novel would lose its impact on the readers, and therefore its message. Chopin’s use of religion to emphasize her message of independence is best expressed through her characters.