1. Create a Web site to introduce The Awakening to other readers. Design pages to intrigue and inform your audience and invite other readers to post their thoughts and responses to their reading of the novel. 2. Develop a screenplay for a film version of the book. Indicate which scenes […]
Read more Study Help Practice ProjectsStudy Help Essay Questions
1. To what extent does Edna’s story depend upon its location in 1890s America? How might her behavior and attitudes be received in another place and time, such as in ancient Greece or medieval England? 2. What is Edna trying to achieve throughout the novel? Does she fulfill her mission? […]
Read more Study Help Essay QuestionsStudy Help Full Glossary
Acadian descendant of the French Canadians who in 1755 left Acadia, a former French colony (1604-1713) on the northeast coast of North America. accouchement childbirth. alacrity eager willingness or readiness, often manifested by quick, lively action. “Allez vous-en! Sapristi!” French phrases meaning “Go away! For God’s sake!” appointments furniture; equipment. […]
Read more Study Help Full GlossaryCritical Essays Wing Imagery
Chopin drew on a long history of bird imagery in women’s writing to establish The Awakening’s opening image: the green-and-yellow parrot. Women writers since the 1700s had used caged birds as symbols to represent the limitations of their own domestic lives. Chopin’s parrot, which symbolizes Edna, not only voices a […]
Read more Critical Essays Wing ImageryCritical Essays Art in Edna Pontellier’s Life
Like the rest of Edna’s character, her identity as a painter is not clear cut. She is neither a recreational artist like Madame Ratignolle, whose musicianship is another element of consummate domesticity, nor a serious artiste like Mademoiselle Reisz, who has a piano rather than a personal life. The progress […]
Read more Critical Essays Art in Edna Pontellier’s LifeKate Chopin Biography
Personal Background Kate Chopin was born Catherine O’Flaherty in St. Louis on February 8, 1850. Her mother, Eliza Faris, came from an old French family that lived outside of St. Louis. Her father, Thomas, was a highly successful Irish-born businessman; he died when Kate was five years old. Chopin grew […]
Read more Kate Chopin BiographyCharacter Analysis Mademoiselle Reisz
Although Mademoiselle Reisz is not introduced until Chapter 9, she is represented in the novel’s opening scene by the mockingbird. Chopin describes the parrot (which symbolizes Edna) as speaking “a language which nobody understood, unless it was the mockingbird that hung on the other side of the door.” Madame Reisz’s […]
Read more Character Analysis Mademoiselle ReiszCharacter Analysis Robert Lebrun
Robert has a romantic image of himself that is not supported by his actions or behavior. When he tells Edna about the Gulf ghost who returns to the coast every year waiting for a woman to wins his heart, he is implicitly talking about himself. Every summer Robert leaves his […]
Read more Character Analysis Robert LebrunCharacter Analysis Leonce Pontellier
Edna’s materialistic husband remains in the dark throughout the novel: He does not perceive her obsession with Robert Lebrun or dissatisfaction with himself, and fails to grasp that she has left him when she rents her own house and moves out of his mansion. His intense focus on his business […]
Read more Character Analysis Leonce PontellierCharacter Analysis Edna Pontellier
As the main protagonist, Edna undergoes a significant change in attitude, behavior, and overall character throughout the course of the novel, as she becomes aware of and examines the private, unvoiced thoughts that constitute her true self. Her characterization was strikingly ambivalent for its time: She is neither a flawless […]
Read more Character Analysis Edna Pontellier