...The Awakening The Awakening explores different details of a woman living life through the 1800's. The main character that is discussed is Edna Pontellier. She is married to Leonce Pontellier and they have two children together, Etienne and Raoul. The story behind Edna is her desire and struggles to be an independent woman and live fully within her true self. She has struggles learning this about herself and the purpose of a happy life that in turn it causes friction with her friends and family. There are many symbols and perspectives in the story that will help decide whether or not Edna did the right thing in the end. Although Edna's ultimate suicide is a waste of her struggles against an oppressive society, The Awakening supports and encourages feminism as a way for women to obtain sexual freedom, financial independence, and individual identity. A critical analysis consists of choosing a certain lens that would point out certain characteristics of a book and summarize the findings. From the weekly reading “When you analyze a piece of literature or portion of it, it is important to look at various parts of the work—characters, setting, figurative language, and symbolism” (South University, Lecture, wk.2). There are three perspectives that were included in The Awakening, Feminist, Psychoanalytical and Historical. While writing this paper from a feminist perspective there will also be comparisons from the other two. As Sigmund Freud stated “the mind has two parts,...
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...A Married Woman’s Complex In 2012, the University of Chicago conducted a “well being” study and it was found that 97% of married people are “happily married”. If this study were conducted a century ago, 97% probably would have reported being unhappy in their marriage, the majority being women. These dutiful wives and repressed mothers were not allowed any personal or intellectual freedom. These oppressed, married women are the types of characters feminist author, Kate Chopin, revels in. During the production of “Kate Chopin: A Re-Awakening” at Emory University, Elizabeth Fox-Genovese said Chopin was “nonetheless a woman who took women extremely seriously, she never doubted women’s ability to be strong.” The characters in Chopin’s short stories’, “The Story of An Hour” and “The Storm”, are unfulfilled and desire more in their marriage. They have no validation in life and may have husbands that love and provide for them yet they are still unhappy. They are all invested in their marriages and families yet at some point realize that they ultimately yearn for a single and free life. Louisa Mallard ironically felt more liberated when she learned of her husband’s death and Calixta and Clarisse are involved with the same man yet want different things from him. In such few words, Kate Chopin is able to illustrate the oppressiveness women of the late 1800s felt in their marriages. Louisa felt more obligations in her marriage than love. Chopin describes her as, “young, with a fair,...
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...Vicky Silva 30 May 2015 English 204 Professor Jimenez The Complexities of Being a Feminist If being a woman in today’s patriarchal led society is hard to be taken serious, it is hard to imagine how much harder it must have been many, many generations ago, it must have been next to impossible to express a thought, an idea when the like of Sor Juana Inez de la Cruz was roaming the earth. Hell, it has only been less than 50 years ago when women were just viewed as housewives, secretaries and nurses. Yet, it has taken more than 100 years for women to be viewed as equals. This idea of gender equality is not something new. The feminist movement has been an old, progressive one. Many women and men alike have had these gender equity ideas for centuries; this idea is not a new one as pioneers from Sor Juana to Kate Chopin to even the present-day Emma Watson, have stated time and time again, women are faced with oppression by the patriarchal society in many different ways that hurt women and men alike. Kate Chopin wrote many short stories in her time that pushed the envelope for the feminist movement. Two stories in particular were “The Storm” and “ The Story of An Hour”. Both of these stories have a female protagonist oppressed by a male antagonist, which very much can be construed as a commentary of what social normal behavior was, a patriarchal driven society that oppressed any type of female freedoms or expressions. In Chopin’s short story, “The Story of An Hour” the...
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