Kate Chopin s The Awakening - 1685 Words

The Swim to Happiness â€Å"Even as a child she had lived her own small life all within herself. At a very early period she had apprehended instinctively the dual life—that outward existence which conforms, the inward life which questions† (Chopin 18). The Victorian Era created a clear distinguishment between male and female roles in society, where women were expected to behave feminine-like, be responsible for domestic duties and have little involvement in society. This created a heavy oppression upon females and as a result forced many of them to remain entrapped in a male dominant society, in fear of being outcasted. In the novel The Awakening, Kate Chopin depicts how Edna’s defiance of Victorian ideal and ignorance of gender roles allows†¦show more content†¦This set her apart as a unique, but ultimately too potent writer in a literary period that had not yet awakened to the more modern notions of feminism...the fine line between author, narrator, and heroine is crossed a nd it seems useless to view this work as independent from the author’s most intense convictions. (Smith). The atmosphere that Chopin s was exposed to from an early childhood and into adolescence shaped the person she became and therefore the writer that later followed. Her novel reflects the feminist ideals she believed in and the progression away from those Victorian ideals through the character of Edna (Smith). Since the culture of this era determined that women should only possess domestic roles, Edna is expected to comply to these standards, but her rebellion against these ideals leads to her later emancipation. However, Edna defies these standards to be a housewife and fails to meet these social expectations: â€Å"Mr. Pontellier had been a rather courteous husband so long as he met a certain tacit submissiveness in his wife. But her new and unexpected line of conduct completely bewildered him. It shocked him. Then her absolute disregard for her duties as a wife angered him† (Chopin 146). Edna not only lacks the ability to care for a house, which is the expectation of wife, but she also does not care for her children in the same manner that is