The Awakening
Throughout , a novel by Kate Chopin, the main character, Edna Pontellier showed signs of a growing depression. There are certain events that hasten this, events which eventually lead her to suicide.
At the beginning of the novel when Edna's husband, Leonce Pontellier, returns from Klein's hotel, he checks in on the children and believing that one of them has a fever he tells his wife, Edna. She says that the child was fine when he went to bed, but Mr. Pontellier is certain that he isn't mistaken: "He reproached his wife with her inattention, her habitual neglect of the children." (7) Because of the reprimand, Edna goes into the next room to check on the children. "She soon came back and ...
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of her arm and went on crying there, not caring any longer to dry her face, her eyes, her arms. She could not have told you why she was crying." (7-8)
As time goes on we can see that her depression grows ever so slightly, and that it will continue to grow throughout the novel. Such happenings are nothing new to Edna: " Such experiences as the foregoing were not uncommon in her married life. They seemed never before to have weighed much against her husband's kindness and a uniform devotion which had come to be tacit and self understood." (8) The author goes on to describe what Edna felt during the episode: " An indescribable oppression, which seemed to generate in some unfamiliar part of her consciousness, filled her whole being with a vague anguish. It was like a shadow, like a mist passing across her soul's summer day." (8)
When Edna goes to mass with her friend, Robert Lebrun, we see another instance where she's not herself: "A feeling of oppression and drowsiness ...
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emotion which was troubling - tearing- her. Her eyes were brimming with tears." (44) Edna's life is not complete when Robert leaves:
Robert's going had some way taken the brightness, the color, the meaning out of everything. The conditions of her life were in no way changed, but her whole existence was dulled, like a faded garment which seems no longer worth wearing. She sought him everywhere- in others whom she induced to talk about him. (44)
After the Pontellier's return to the city, Edna is less concerned with doing what her husband and society has deemed is right and proper for her. She completely ignores her "reception day" and instead goes out and does what she wants to do. ...
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The Awakening. (2007, February 18). Retrieved May 1, 2024, from http://www.essayworld.com/essays/The-Awakening/60513
"The Awakening." Essayworld.com. Essayworld.com, 18 Feb. 2007. Web. 1 May. 2024. <http://www.essayworld.com/essays/The-Awakening/60513>
"The Awakening." Essayworld.com. February 18, 2007. Accessed May 1, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/The-Awakening/60513.
"The Awakening." Essayworld.com. February 18, 2007. Accessed May 1, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/The-Awakening/60513.
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