feminaw Edna Pontellier’s Predicament in Kate Chopins The Awakening :: Chopin Awakening Essays

Ednas Predicament in The Awakening Dr. Mandelet, speaking much as a wise, older man than as a medical exam authority, seems to understand Ednas predicament. When Mr. Pontellier asks for his advice concerning the strange behaviour of his wife, the doctor immediately wonders, Is there around(prenominal) man in the case? (950). While Edna thinks she is expressing her independent rights, Dr. Mandelet knows her heart is unflurried tied to the need for a man in her life, and to an uncontrolled ledger entry to call forthual passion. After her self-proclaimed release from her husbands narrow world of prescribed sexual urge roles, Edna begins to act spontaneously, without considering, as Leonce would wish, what people would say (977). During a visit to white perch Reisz, she boldly displays her new attitude, refusing the more modest hot chocolate in favor of a mans drink I entrust take some brandy, said Edna, shivering as she removed her gloves and overshoes. She drank the liquor fr om the glass as a man would have done. Then flinging herself upon the uncomfortable sofa she said, Mademoiselle, I am going to move away from my house on Esplanade Street. (962) However, she will be moving just two steps away (962), she admits, betraying the fact that her womens liberationist step forward will be hindered by at to the lowest degree two steps back. Her new assertiveness will not be enough to shield her from the difficulties of her changing life. Although she expresses herself to Robert in what she deems an unwomanly style (990), she is allay a victim of societal conditioning, wanting to surrender her identity to another(prenominal) person. Cristina Giorcelli writes that Transitional states are inevitably states of inner and outer ambiguity. In her gather up for her true self, Edna loses, or enhances with the addition of the opposite ones, her original gender connotations and affectionate attributes (121). Such a reading, however, risks simplifying the story in i ts attempt to clarify on the dot that which is ambiguous. Although Giorcelli agrees that the storys message is blurred, she seems to contradict herself when she argues that, Through her androgyny Edna succeeds in achieving the wholeness of a composite unity, both integral and versatile, both necessary and free. Triumphing over sex and role differentiations ontologically implies sub- jugating that which substantiates but curtails, and ethically it entails mastering the grim unilaterality of responsibility. The bourgeois crisis that Edna endures--the contrast between duty toward others and right toward herself-- .