Perhaps already sensing that her call to awaken was far too ahead of many of her contemporary readers, in the final pages of The Awakening Chopin spoke through the voice of Edna, lest anyone miss the message she was imparting. "Perhaps it is better to wake up after all, even suffer, rather than to remain a dupe to illusions all one's life" (Chopin 344-345)
Douglass recognized, used and urged others to utilize the enormous power of the spoken and written language to help bring about positive change not only for the individual, but for society as well. (Douglass)
This was assured by law, as well as with marriage vows in which the woman was required to swear an oath to obey her husband. It was not until the 1800s that American female voices such those of Margaret Fuller, Stanton and Chopin began in their own ways to urge women to seek economic and social equality (Martin-Bowen)
Critique - The Awakening On July 19 and 20, 1848, three hundred people gathered at the Wesleyan Chapel in Seneca Falls, New York for the first Women's Rights Convention. There, Elizabeth Cady Stanton read the "Declaration of Sentiments," a speech in which she listed demands and resolutions, and stated the purpose of the gathering: "To protest against a form of government existing without the consent of the governed - to declare our right to be free as man is free" (Stanton)
In August 2012, several Sikh worshippers were shot to death by a white man in Wisconsin. This reflects that there is a need to increase empathy among religious communities in America (Kaur)
These waves have coincided with increases in economic prosperity and materialism that have caused people to view religion with less interest. It began in the 1930s as disunited attempts at religious revival and in the 1940s had matured into "the remarkable Revival of Religion" (Lambert, p
The most recent example of the damaging effect of human greed in modern times is the 2007 global economic crisis that originated from overextending credit in the American housing sector. This was a belief in trying to create more wealth by making decisions based on greed in the face of great risk (Shah)
And yet there is no shortage of the sort of staid, tranquil domestics that exemplify the virtues of motherhood -- many of which Edna herself does not possess nor entirely desires to possess -- particularly when one considers the example of Adele Ratignolle, which the following quotation describing quintessential mother-women demonstrates. It was easy to know them…They were women who idolized their children, worshipped their husbands, and esteemed it a holy privilege to efface themselves as individuals and grow wings as ministering angels…one of them was the embodiment of every womanly grace and charm…Her name was Adele Ratignolle (Chopin)
Women still make a number of sacrifices for their families, probably more so than any other members in it. However, it is only natural women and people in general "chafe at specific responsibilities and want more for…work or ourselves" (Fox-Genovese)
Its protagonist, Edna Pontellier, is forced to forsake all of the wonder, delight, and sensations of life -- those that are intrinsically hers, anyway -- for an unyielding society in which her only virtue is that of raising children and her role as a mother. That her reaction to her fate is decidedly different from that of the other mothers portrayed within the novel only serves to underscore the author's point that women must sacrifice their essential selves (their aspirations, their desires, their link to crave the very things that animate their children and which they themselves craved as children) to become credible matriarchs due to the "external, repressive force" (Wolff 449) of society
Recalling the old adage that life is a tragedy for those that feel and a comedy for those that think can help to illuminate where this play fits on the spectrum of comedy and tragedy. The intellectual argument in the final scene of the play, and the Masked Man's dry ultimate assertion that "in the end everyone has his part," suggest that this is a thinking play, and thus is best understood as a comedy (Wedekind 58)
Wright must speak and write on behalf of the collective. "In order to escape accountability for his crimes, the perpetrator does everything to encourage forgetting" (Herman 8)
Wright realizes this in a cruel shock, so he resolves, almost against his will like a prophet having a forced calling from God, that he must speak for the man. He sees that no liberation from racism has occurred in American society, and while once upon a time a "master's death was the occasion for the release of the slave," this is no longer the case -- a slave is forever bound because of the way that blackness and slavery is viewed as permanently intertwined in society (Patterson 227)
But she could not realize why or how she should have yielded, feeling as she then did. "(Chopin 79) The relation between language and gender has always reflected societal power relations
Edna Pontellier faces great difficulty in expressing herself in the strongly patriarchal society of nineteenth century New Orleans. She is unable to vocalize her frustration or her desires because "the registers available to her are unsuitable for that purpose" (Brightwell 37)
This new society granted men and women equal rights which were reflected in the opportunity to participate in all aspects and processes of society, and provided equality as far as political justice. The rebirth of the Feminist Movement of the 1950s was attributed to a great extent to the publication of Betty Friedan's "The Feminine Mistique" (Freeman: 798), a book which encouraged women to liberate themselves from the social conventions which kept them confined to the domestic space and role
However, this process of spiritual awakening is not identical to the fairytale in which a love stricken princess awakens with a kiss only to find her lover sitting by her bedside. Edna awakens to life in a more complex manner which enables her to take control of her "libidinal energies" (Griffin Wolff 461) that "had been arrested at a pre-genital level" (Ibid) - so she awakens "very hungry" (Chopin 95)
Her hunger should not be restricted solely to sexuality because it encompasses all aspects of human life which she had not had access to during her marriage. Edna's final awakening or her final step towards self-assertion reveals that her nature is devoid of hope (Ringe 586)
From this point-of-view, Edna finds herself incarcerated in a marriage which does not bring her any joy or happiness but feelings of repression and frustration. Her frustration increases as she realizes that the roles that she had assumed - those of mother and wife - impede self-expression and the creation of selfhood (Spangler 251)
Edna sits in the rocker outside and weeps, "She could not have told why she was crying. Such experiences as the foregoing were not uncommon in her married life" (Chopin pp)