In Kate Chopin’s novel The Awakening, Edna Pontellier is forced to strive to match in with everybody and every little thing around her. Born and raised in Kentucky, Edna is utilised to the Southern society, but when she marries Leonce Pontellier, a Catholic and a Creole, and moves to Louisiana with him, her surroundings alter a excellent deal. This makes her really feel exceptionally uncomfortable and confused she feels as even though she has lost her identity along with a fantastic deal of her happiness. In order to regain this identity and to attempt to obtain out who she really is, Edna tries her hardest to conform to the Creole society. Although Edna tries particularly hard to accept this Creole society as her own and to develop into element of it in order to claim her identity, she fails to uncover both her correct happiness and her identity, which, in turn, causes her to commit suicide.
A great deal of Edna’s unhappiness is due to the truth that her husband is extremely firm with her, he treats her with a fantastic deal of “authority and coercion,” as is requested by Edna’s father, and he strongly believes that she need to conform to the Creole society. In accordance with society, Leonce believes that Edna should be the stereotypical housewife who does all the things she possibly can for her husband and her young children. Even so, when Edna does anything that contradicts this effectively-established Creole social code, Leonce reveals his disappointment. For example, when Edna is sunbathing at the beach on Grand Isle, her husband approaches her and says, “ ‘What folly! to bathe at such an hour in such heat! You are burnt beyond recognition.’ ” Kate Chopin adds that Mr. Pontellier looks at his wife “as 1 looks at a worthwhile piece of home which has suffered some damage.” Over time, the damaging attitude that Leonce has toward Edna causes her to appear for safety, happiness, and adore in other men and women and areas. It is then that she meets, and at some point falls in love with, Robert Lebrun.
All through the novel, Edna encounters a lot of “awakenings” of her own. 1 quite significant awakening occurs when she recognizes her unrequited like for Robert Lebrun. Edna realizes that Leonce no longer matters to her and that she would be much happier if she had been with Robert. Hence, Robert becomes the one particular particular person and the practically unattainable purpose Edna lives for consequently, when he ultimately…