The Awakening ~ Kate Chopin

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The Awakening Kate Chopin
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Major Concepts to Consider

• Defiance
• Control - Caged
• Personal Freedom
• Fidelity
• Dreams v. Reality
• Individual v. Society
• Freedom - Flight

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Key Characters

• Edna Pontellier
• Leonce Pontellier
• Robert LeBrun
• Madame Ratignolle
• Mademoiselle Reisz
• Dr. Mandelet

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Opening Lines

• A green and yellow parrot, which hung in a cage
  outside the door kept repeating over and over
• Allez vous-en! Allez vous-en! Spristi! Thats
  all right!
• What is the significance of this opening passage?

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The Awakening

• A certain light was beginning to dawn dimly
  within her the light which, showing the way,
  forbids it (13).
• But the beginning of things, of a world
  especially, is necessarily vague, tangled,
  chaotic, and exceedingly disturbing. How few of
  us ever emerge from such beginning. How many
  souls perish in its tumult! (13).

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Side note Just love this line!

• Who can tell what metals the gods use in forging
  the subtle bond which we call sympathy, which we
  might as well call love (14).

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Foreshadowing

• Her marriage to Leonce Pontellier was purely an
  accident (18).
• You will take cold out there, he said,
  irritably. What folly is this? (31).
• She was blindly following whatever impulse moved
  her, as if she had placed herself in alien hands
  for direction, and freed her soul of
  responsibility (32).

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Aha!

• She had all her life long been accustomed to
  harbor thoughts and emotions which never voiced
  themselves (47).
• AndPage 52 What is the parallel to something
  youve already read?!!

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The Custom Of The Age

• Mr. Pontellier had been a rather courteous
  husband so long as he met a certain tacit
  submissiveness in his wife (57).
• Put your foot down gold and hard, the only way
  to manage a wife. Take my word for it (71).

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Not so hidden anymore

• You are purposely misunderstanding me, ma
  reine. Are you in love with Robert? (81).

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A key...and a great quote!

• The bird that would soar above the level plain
  of tradition and prejudice must have strong
  wings. It is a sad spectacle to see weaklings
  bruised, exhausted, fluttering back to earth
  (83).

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And another

• The years that are gone seem like dreams if
  one might go on sleeping and dreaming but to
  wake up and find oh! Well! Perhaps it is better
  to wake up after all, even to suffer, rather than
  to remain a dupe to illusions all ones life
  (112).

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Rewrite the ending?

• There was no despondency when she went to sleep
  that night nor was there hope when she awoke in
  the morning (105).