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

Ednas Predicament in The Awakening Dr. Mandelet, speech production more as a wise, older man than as a medical 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 thither any man in the case? (950). While Edna thinks she is expressing her independent rights, Dr. Mandelet knows her intent is still tied to the need for a man in her life, and to an anarchical submission to sexual passion. After her self-proclaimed release from her husbands narrow world of incontr overtible sexual urge roles, Edna begins to act spontaneously, without considering, as Leonce would wish, what people would say (977). During a contemplate care to Mademoiselle Reisz, she boldly displays her new attitude, refusing the more modest hot coffee berry in favor of a mans drink I will take some brandy, said Edna, shivering as she removed her gloves and overshoes. She drank the liquor from the glass over 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 point that her feminist step forward will be hindered by at least two steps back. Her new assertiveness will non be enough to shield her from the difficulties of her changing life. Although she expresses herself to Robert in what she deems an unwomanly vogue (990), she is still a victim of societal conditioning, wanting to surrender her personal identity to another person. Cristina Giorcelli writes that Transitional states are inevitably states of inner and outer ambiguity. In her quest for her true self, Edna loses, or enhances with the addition of the opposite ones, her original gender connotations and social attributes (121). Such a reading, however, risks simplifying the story in its attempt to shed light on exactly th at 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 oneness 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 burgess crisis that Edna endures--the discrepancy between duty toward others and right toward herself-- .