Kate Chopins The Awakening Essay -- Chopin Awakening Essays

During the late nineteenth century, the time of protagonist Edna Pontellier, a womanhoods place in society was confined to worshipping her children and submitting to her husband. Kate Chopins novel, The Awakening, encompasses the frustrations and the triumphs in a womans behavior as she attempts to cope with these strict cultural demands. Defying the stereotype of a mother-woman, Edna battles the pressures of 1899 that direction her to be a subdued and devoted housewife. Although Ednas ultimate suicide is a waste of her struggles against an oppressive society, The Awakening supports and encourages feminism as a room for women to obtain sexual freedom, financial independence, and item-by-item identity. Feminism is commonly notion of as a tool for educating society on the rights of women. It teaches that a woman is equal to a man in every civil and social accord. Realizing this is not always the case, Charlotte Bunch, a noted lesbian feminist of the mid-seventies also defined f eminism as a way of aspect at the human beings - a questioning of power and domination issues (WIE). more feminists attempt to bulrush the ideals of stereotypical women and push them away from those who believe in these standards. Feminist scholars also seek to question and transform androcentric sic systems of thought which bearing the male as the norm, says Barbara McManus. They strive to find, examine, and eliminate biases in a world encumbered with intolerant men who see women as thoughtless objects and closely certainly not equals. Other women announce their impressive intellect, economic well-being, and individual personalities to the people who oppose them. A woman should always present herself and rationalise her forthcoming jaunts into Feminists, like Edna, howe... ...Barbara F. Characteristics of a Feminist Approach. December 8, 2001. http//www.cnr.edu/home/bmcmanus/femcharacteristics.html. Showalter, Elaine. The female person Malady Women, Madness, and English Cult ure, 1830-1980. in the altogether York, NY Pantheon Books, November 1985. Ward, Jennifer A. Deconstruction or Feminist refresh? December 9, 2001. http//www.geocities.com/athens/acropolis.6998/chopin2.html. Wear, Delese and Nixon, Lois LaCivita. Literary Anatomies Womens Bodies and health in Literature. Albany, NY State University of New York Press, 1994. Womens Information Exchange. Feminism Defined. December 7, 2001. http//electrapages.com/FEMINIST.htm Wood, Ann Douglas. The Fashionable Diseases Womens Complaints and Their Treatment in Nineteenth-Century America. Women and Health in America. Madison, WI University of Wisconsin Press, Ltd., 1984.