Edna Pontellier’s Self-discovery in Kate Chopins The Awakening :: Chopin Awakening Essays

Theme of Self-discovery in Kate Chopins The waken      Edna Pontlierre experiences a theme of self-discovery throughout the entirenovel of Kate Chopins The Awakening.  in spite of appearance Ednas travel through selfdiscovery,  Chopin successfully uses tone, style, and content to friend the lectorunderstand a person challenging the beliefs of  a na&239ve friendship at the beginningof the twentieth century.   Chopins style and tone essentially helps the lectorunderstand the character of Edna and what her surrounding influences are.  Thetone and style also helps the audience understand the rest of the charactersthroughout the novel.  The entire content is relevant to the period frame it waswritten, expressing ideas of the forthcoming feminist movement and creating anawareness of what was happening to the women of the advance(prenominal) ordinal century.      When The Awakening was first published,  its popularity wasnt that ofmodern day.  In fact, it was widely rejected for years.  Within the context, itis considered a very liberal book from the beginning of the nineteenth century.The ideas expressed within the content concern the womens movement and anindividual charr searching for who she really is.  Ross C. Murfin in hiscritical essay  The New Historicism and the Awakening,  shows how Chopin usesthe entity of the hand to relate to both the entire womens issue and EdnaPontlierres self geographic expedition Chopin uses hands to raise the issues of women, seat, self-possession, andvalue.  Women like Adele Ratignolle, represented by their perfectly scout orgloved hands, are signs mainly of their husbands wealth, and therefor of whatStange calls  surplus value.  By insisting on supporting herself with her ownhands through art and having control of her own property the place she movedin to and her inheritance, Edna seeks to come into ownership of a self that ismore than a mere ornament.  She seeks to possess herself (p 197).         Within in the content,  Adele Ratignolle and mademoiselle representfoils to Edna.  Mademoiselle  represents a single woman that everyone dislikeswho Edna typically confides in.  Adele Ratignolle contrasts Edna because shedutifully plays the social role of mother-woman.  The subscriber learns how Ednacontrasts and transcends throughout the entire novel.  From her refusal tosacrifice herself for her children in the beginning of the novel to her movinginto her own house towards the end of the novel,  the reader is effectivelyaware of the realities that face the women of the early twentieth century singly  and as a society.         Chopins style in The Awakening is intended to help the audienceunderstand the character of Edna and the dilemmas that she faces as a married