Edna Pontellier essay topics

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  • Awakening Of Edna Pontellier
    935 words
    In Kate Chopin's The Awakening, the main character, Edna Pontellier makes a very long, painful journey into her inner self. At the end of this journey she discovers that she is not strong enough to adopt a life in which a woman is her own woman and lives for herself. This forces her to choose the only other option available to her. I think the propriety with which Edna struggles (and most often gives in to) as she begins to discover who she is and what she wants creates a thick, almost suffocati...
  • Edna's Husband
    1,459 words
    Late 19th Century Creole Society as it pertains to: Kate Chopin's The Awakening During the 1890's, New Orleans was an interesting place to be. Characterized by strict social codes, both spoken and unspoken, a prosperous lifestyle was the reward for following these strict laws of the society. This conformity made for a strenuous situation for Edna Pontellier, the protagonist of Kate Chopin's novel, The Awakening. It is of utmost necessity that Chopin places Edna in this unique setting, both becau...
  • Edna's Affair With Arobin
    584 words
    Was isolation the key to a woman's independence in the 19th Century Kate Chopin's novel, The Awakening, presents women as helpless creatures who are subject to all means besides personal beliefs. The main character, Edna Pontellier, strives to find the self-independence that she deems necessary. Through many attempts of evolution, Edna finds the worst to be her escape. Edna's suicide is the last, and perhaps best, choice she makes for herself. The choice of suicide is brought upon Mrs. Pontellie...
  • Edna Pontellier
    1,034 words
    The Awakening is a novel about the growth of a woman into her own person, in spite of the mold society has formed for her. The book follows Edna Pontellier through about a year of her life. During this time we see her struggle to find who she really is, because she knows she cannot be happy filling the role of the mother-woman that society has created for her. She did not believe that she could break from this pattern because of the pressures of society, and ends up taking her own life. Should r...
  • Mind Of Edna Pontellier
    688 words
    Kate Chopin underscores the expression 'free as a bird' in the novel The Awakening through the consistent use of aviary symbolism. Throughout the story she cleverly weaves images and descriptions of birds to express the psychological state of mind of her main character, Edna Pontellier. Perhaps the most obvious example of this symbolism is in the first spoken sentences of the novel, which, strangely enough, are not uttered by a human, but rather screeched by a parrot. 'Allez vous-en! Allez vous-...
  • Sexual Yearning Of Edna Pontellier
    422 words
    The book, The Awakening by Kate Chopin, is not so much a love story as it is a story of one woman. Mrs. Pontellier was a woman with emotional needs. Her needs include material, sexual, intimacy, and the need to be wanted or needed. Among Lonce Pontellier, Alce Arobin, and Robert Lebrun, she pursues and meets her needs. Although Lonce Pontellier didnt seem to play a part in her life, he did. He provided her materialistic needs. Just as she dreaded, he was her husband in the worlds eyes. It is pla...
  • Madame Ratignolle And Mademoiselle Reisz
    540 words
    It would be easy to say that Edna Pontellier emulates both Madame Ratignolle and Mademoiselle Reisz, however, throughout the novel, it is evident that Edna steps out beyond this assumption and asserts herself as another person altogether. This is obvious in the defining features of each of the women. Madame Ratignolle, for example, is always represented in a very flamboyant nature and is usually associated with clothes, whereas, Mademoiselle Reisz, in contrast, has no relation to clothes or anyt...
  • Bird Like Edna
    906 words
    Throughout The Awakening, Kate Chopin conveys her ideas by using carefully crafted symbols that reflect her characters' thoughts and futures. One of the most important of these symbols, the bird, appears constantly, interwoven in the story to provide an insight to the condition of Edna's and her struggle. At each of the three stages of her struggle, birds foreshadow her actions and emphasize the actions' importance while the birds' physical state provides an accurate measure of that of Edna's. E...
  • Leonce And Edna Pontellier
    701 words
    By: Alan Eugene Sims, Jr. Awakening by Kate Chopin- How Marriage Can / Should Work Marriages in the 1990's have become uncommon, or they become unstable as the relationship between the individuals progresses. The book Awakening, written by Kate Chopin, that was written about a woman named Edna Pontellier's sexual awakening shows repeated examples of how a marriage should and should not work. Her marriage to Leonce Pontellier shows that marriage needs understanding of feelings between husband and...
  • Pity Mr Pontellier Doesn't Stay Home
    754 words
    English 102 20 June 2000 Mrs. Pontellier's Lack of Love Edna's obsession of a perfect life leaves her children motherless, her husband grieving, and her friends in shock. Because of Edna's lack of consideration for everyone around her, she traumatizes all of the people who love her. She has everything any woman could ask for: a caring husband, sweet friends, precious children, and every material possession possible. Because Edna is so caught up in herself and her life of seclusion, she not only ...
  • Defiance Of Adele Ratignolle And Mademoiselle Reisz
    943 words
    The Impressionist The opponent has just made his final play. The outcome of the game all depends on the next move. The mind, which was once hazy, is now becoming clearer. The goal is now in focus. She makes her move towards the left and then quickly retreats as though her body were to be sliced in half. She thinks this cannot be right, just because that move works for my teammate does not mean that it is right for me. There are two paths that can be taken to ensure victory or as it seems to the ...
  • Mrs Pontellier In Her Place
    651 words
    Alfred Roberts Eng. 102-H Dr. Daniels 4/17/00 Edna's Attempts for Happiness Kate Chopin's The Awakening deals with a young wife living in common days and times. Where every man works and provides for his family and the woman's primary focus was the care of her children and other household duties that women were responsible for in those days. The main character of this novel, Edna Pontellier, struggles from day to day to try and establish herself as an individual in the midst of women following t...
  • Edna And Robert
    893 words
    The Awakening, by Kate Chopin is a work of fictions that tells the story of a woman name Edna Pontellier. At the beginning, Edna is satisfied with her marriage to Leonce Pontellier, who is a wealthy New Orleans businessperson of forty, and the father of their two sons. However, she is still searching for something more in her life, sort of meaning for her existence. While in Grand Isle, a summer resort, she meets a man name Robert. Robert is known among the vacationers as a man who chooses one w...
  • Edna By The Mysterious Mademoiselle Reisz
    1,207 words
    Avian Symbolism In The Awakening Essay, Research Avian Symbolism In The Awakening Avian Symbolism in The Awakening Kate Chopin consistently uses avian symbolism in the novel The Awakening to represent and Enlighten Edna Pontellier. She begins the novel with the image of a caged bird and throughout the story other birds and avian images appear representing freedom, failure, and choices that Edna, the story's main character, must make. Throughout The Awakening Chopin uses flight and descriptions o...
  • Edna Pontellier Underwent A Spiritual Awakening
    670 words
    Kate Chopin's novel The Awakening relates the emotion-driven story of Edna Pontellier. Her story is a happy one. Not because of some typical fairy tale ending where they all live happily ever after, but in that she accomplished her goal in life. She never "sacrificed herself for her children". (p. 115) Edna Pontellier remained an individual. The music that was brought to her by Mademoiselle Reisz stirred up a deeper meaning in Edna's life. This is the point at which she feels her new being formi...
  • Story Of Edna Pontellier
    674 words
    Jennifer Poisson Take-Home Essay Test En 262 05/02/2001 Awakening to Freedom Awakening or to awake means "to wake up; to be or make alert or watchful' (Webster 23). This is what Edna Pontellier experienced in The Awakening. There has been some discussion over the appropriateness of the ending to this story. Was it appropriate for Edna to commit suicide? Yes, this story of Edna Pontellier, including the ending, is appropriate to what a woman probably would have felt like if she were in that time ...

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