Ednas Struggle for Power in Chopins The Awakening Essay examples --

Ednas Struggle for Power in Chopins The arouse Kate Chopins The Awakening tells the story of Edna Pontellier, a young wife and mother living in the upper crust of New Orleans in the 1890s. It depicts her journey as her standing shifts from one of entrapment to one of empowerment. As the story begins, Edna is blessed with wealthiness and the pleasure of an affluent lifestyle. She is a woman of leisure, excepting only in tender obligations. This endowment, however, is hindered greatly by her gender. Being a woman, she is totally at the favor of her husband. He provides for her a lifestyle she could not obtain on her possess and fixes her place in society. This vulnerability stops Edna from being truly empowered. To pile up emancipation as a woman, and as a person, Edna must antecede the stability and comfort she finds in the relationship with her husband. Mr. and Mrs. Pontelliers marriage comprises a serial of power plays and responds well to Marxist and Feminist The ory. Leonce Pontellier looks at his wife as one who looks at a valuable piece of property. He views her as an accessory that completes the ideal life for him. Edna, however, begins to desire autonomy and independence from Leonce, so true to the feminist point of view. In Chapter III Mr. Pontellier enters their dwell in Grand Isle late one night, waking Edna. He is full of self-importance as he talks to her while he begins to ready himself for bed. Since she has just been awakened, Edna does not respond with the enthusiasm Mr. Pontellier deems acceptable. He popular opinion it very discouraging that his wife evinced so little interest in things which concerned him, and valued so little his conversation. (12) To assert his dominance, Leonce demands that E... ...cision does not do from her relationship with her husband, she cannot yield the independence she has won and return to him. In found to fulfill her quest, she must continue on her oceanicrch for independence. The voice o f the sea is seductive, never ceasing, whispering, clamoring and murmuring, inviting the soul to wander in the abysses of solitude. She submerges herself in the ocean and in the solitude she has longed for throughout the novel. Only in her death is Leonce completely powerless. She has taken control of her destiny. Edna Pontellier as a literary character is inglorious for her time. She achieves true empowerment, a status not often experienced by women in the Victorian Era. She rebels against her husband and the social norms that he represents. True to the time, much(prenominal) a conflict could not resolve in her favor without sorrow, only ultimately Edna triumphs.