Literature Analysis #3

The Awakening by Kate Chopin

1. The main character in The Awakening is Edna Pontellier who is twenty-eight years old.  Her family goes on a vacation from New Orleans to Grand Isle in the Gulf of Mexico for the summer.  When Edna's husband, Léonce, goes on his business trips for work, she spends her time with Adèle.  Adèle reminds Edna her duties as a wife and as a mother.  At the resort in Grand Isle, Edna meets Robert Lebrun, one of Madame Lebrun's sons.  Robert usually devotes chooses one woman in the summer that he devotes himself as an attendant.  That summer he chose to devote himself to Edna Pontellier.  Adèle told him to "let her alone."  Edna soon noticed that Robert started to distance himself from her.  One night when everyone at the resort went to the beach, Edna walked home and Robert soon caught up with her.  When they arrived to her house, they sat on the porch in silence.  Later on in the novel, Robert takes Edna to a cottage to rest because Edna felt drowsy.  That night, Edna noticed that she changed since they have stayed at Grand Isle.  She starts to desire to be with Robert and for social freedom.  When the vacation at Grand Isle is over, the Pontellier family returns to their home in New Orleans.  After they returned home, Edna starts to pull away from everybody and stop with her traditionally duties.  Léonce soon has to got o New York for business and their children stay with his mother.  Edna visits Madame Lebrun and she lets Edna read the letter Robert has written her.  She admits that her feelings for Robert are nothing like her feelings for her own husband.  Edna writes Léonce a letter telling him that she is moving out to a smaller house nearby. Eventually, Robert returns to New Orleans and he admits that he is in love with her and thought that the relationship would never work.  Adèle is in labor and she wants Edna with her, so Edna leaves Robert reassuring him she will be back.  When she returns to her little house, Robert isn't there; a note that said "I love you.  Good-by - because I love you."  Later that day Edna goes to the place where she first learned how to swim.  She swims out into the Gulf of Mexico and lets the water overtake her.
2. I think that the theme of this novel is woman and femininity.  Throughout the novel, Edna is constantly reminded of her duties as a mother, wife, and as a woman.  She has other desires: artistic and financial.  
3. The Awakening has different tones such as seriousness, sincere, and gloomy.
• "The past was nothing to her; offered no lesson which she was willing to heed. The future was a mystery which she never attempted to penetrate. The present alone was significant; was hers, to torture her as it was doing then with the biting conviction that she had lost that which she had held, that she had been denied that which her impassioned, newly awakened being demanded."
• " Edna looked straight before her with a self-absorbed expression upon her face. She felt no interest in anything about her. "
• "She let her mind wander back over her stay at Grand Isle; and she tried to discover wherein this summer had been different from any and every other summer of her life."
4. Literary elements that helped me convey the theme:
• Symbolism:  various homes throughout the novel  "The pigeon-house pleased her. It at once assumed the intimate character of a home, while she herself invested it with a charm which it reflected like a warm glow. There was with her a feeling of having descended in the social scale, with a corresponding sense of having risen in the spiritual."
• Diction: formal language "This may seem like a ponderous weight of wisdom to descend upon the soul of a young woman of twenty-eight"
• Syntax: long descriptive and flowed  “The bird that would soar above the level plain of tradition and prejudice must have strong wings. It is a sad spectacle to see the weaklings bruised, exhausted, fluttering back to earth.” 
• Character:  their actions and words  “I would give up the unessential; I would give up my money, I would give up my life for my children; but I wouldnt give myself. I can't make it more clear; it's only something I can beginning to comprehend, which is revealing itself to me.” 
• Imaginary:  descriptive  “She turned her face seaward to gather in an impression of space and solitude, which the vast expanse of water, meeting and melting with the moonlit sky, conveyed to her excited fancy. As she swam she seemed to be reaching out for the unlimited in which to lose herself.”