A Solitary Soul By Kate Chopin - 1995 Words

On April 22nd, 1899, Herbert S. Stone Company published a novel written by female Author, Kate Chopin. According to Chopin’s official website published by the Kate Chopin International Society in which biographers and editors detail information of the authors life, works, and commonly asked questions, Chopin was 49 years old at the time that The Awakening was published. This novel was originally titled A Solitary Soul, but was changed just prior to publication. Though today this novel is heavily studied and appreciated by scholars and critics alike, this positive outlook on Chopin’s deeply symbolic work of fiction did not develop until over 40 years after Chopin’s death in 1904 (Koloski). Upon being published, an overwhelming amount of people were outraged by the implications of main character Edna Pontellier making decisions that directly negate her societal role as a â€Å"mother-woman† In fact, Chopin was not only releasing a work of fiction to be enj oyed for entertainment, but voicing a great deal of controversial opinions about women’s role in society as a negative thing. At each unsure step that Edna took in the novel, it revealed more to Chopin’s true feelings about the pressures put on women to fit a certain mold, and also implied that regardless of how a woman chose to break that mold, she would be rewarded with nothing but loneliness, homelessness, or in the case of Edna Pontellier, even death. The thought that the â€Å"normal† roles of a woman could drive her to takeShow MoreRelated The Importance of the Sea in The Awakening Essay830 Words   |  4 PagesAwakening      Ã‚   Throughout her novel, The Awakening, Kate Chopin uses symbolism and imagery to portray the main characters emergence into a state of spiritual awareness. The image that appears the most throughout the novel is that of the sea. â€Å"Chopin uses the sea to symbolize freedom, freedom from others and freedom to be ones self† (Martin 58). The protagonist, Edna Pontellier, wants that freedom, and with images of the sea, Chopin shows Ednas awakening desire to be free and her ultimateRead More feminaw Seeking a New Identity for Women in The Awakening Essay1461 Words   |  6 PagesSeeking a New Identity for Women in  The Awakening      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   In The Awakening, Chopin questions gender roles. Chopin seeks an identity for women that is neither wife nor mother. 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Though, The Awakening was considered sexually charged and risquà © for its time, when one analyzes this quote and the original title of Kate Chopin’s story, A Solitary Soul, they come to the realization that there isRead More themeaw Themes and Fate in The Awakening and Madame Bovary Essay1287 Words   |  6 PagesBovary      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Kate Chopins The Awakening and Gustave Flauberts Madame Bovary are both tales of women indignant with their domestic situations; the distinct differences between the two books can be found in the authors unique tones.   Both authors weave similar themes into their writings such as, the escape from the monotony of domestic life, dissatisfaction with marital expectations and suicide.   References to fate abound throughout both works.   In The Awakening, Chopin uses fate to representRead More A Woman Who Is a Person in Kate Chopins The Story of an Hour1058 Words   |  5 PagesA Woman Who Is a Person in The Story of an Hour  Ã‚     Ã‚   In her book, The Faces of Eve, Judith Fryer writes, In the last year of the nineteenth century a woman succeeded where men had failed: Kate Chopin created . . . a woman who is a person. Chopin’s short story, The Story of an Hour, openly portrays the true feelings of a woman who feels trapped inside her marriage. In the period in which she lived, there were only two alternatives for her to achieve the much desired personal freedom—eitherRead MoreEssay on The Awakening1610 Words   |  7 Pages In their analytical papers on The Awakening by Kate Chopin, both Elaine Showalter and Elizabeth Le Blanc speak to the importance of homosocial relationship to Edna’s awakenings. They also share the viewpoint that Edna’s return to the sea in the final scene of the book represents Edna being one with her female lover and finding the fulfillment she has been seeking. We see evidence of this idea of the sea as a feminine from Showalter when she tells us that â⠂¬Å"As the female body is prone to wetness,Read More The Importance of Setting in The Awakening Essay2206 Words   |  9 Pagesin her independent home in New Orleans, and in just about every other environment that she inhabits. In fact, Edna seems to drift from setting to setting in the novel, never really finding her true self - until the end of the novel.      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Chopin seems highly concerned with this question throughout her narrative. On a larger scale, the author seems to be probing even more deeply into the essence of the female experience: Do women in general have a place in the world, and is the life of a womanRead MoreKate Chopin s The Awakening1875 Words   |  8 Pagessocial, and economic equality to men.† The Awakening, by Kate Chopin, was written in 1890 during the height of the women s suffrage movement, and essentially the public felt that the author â€Å"went too far† due to â€Å"the sensuality† of the protagonist (Toth 1). The â€Å"male gatekeepers† that scrutinized her work saw her piece as a statement that â€Å"the husband is a drag†, and that traditional American values should be forgotten (Toth 1). In truth, Chopin did not think that American values, such as motherhood