![]() ![]() She wondered if her husband had ever spoken to her like that before, and if she had submitted to his command,” (585). She could not at that moment have done other than denied and resisted. “She perceived that her will had blazed up, stubborn and resistant. A significant part of Edna’s desire for Robert coincides and deepens with her will to break the traditional, societal, and marital obligations and code of behavior that she increasingly finds as fake and crippling. Edna, throughout the novel, progressively realizes her entrapment as she comes to desire an intimate relationship with Robert more and more. He fell in love, as men are in the habit of doing, and pressed his suit with an earnestness and an ardor which left nothing to desired,” (575). It was in the midst of her secret great passion that she met him. “Her marriage to Léonce Pontellier was purely an accident, in this respect resembling many other marriages which masquerade as the decrees of Fate. It was as part of the common, unquestioned procession of life as its described in the novel, no love, but as part of the blind, guiding forces of life’s situations that Edna was married to Léonce in the first place. Pontellier, and could be described as an obedient, though unthinking, wife. The apparent and clear turmoil Edna experiences is a response to the possession of her by external factors, her marriage perhaps the most significant, that she feels, senses, and frankly despises. The narrator frequently explores and elaborates the mental and emotional processing that Edna internally deals with. Chopin characterizes marriage as something in Edna’s life which constrains, informs, and inspires her and her pursuit for personal fulfillment.Įdna’s marriage to Léonce Pontellier has the force to make her feel inextricably trapped, to complicate her social and solitary life, and to otherwise confuse the care, hope, and love out of her. This understanding, that a majority of her problem is rooted in her marriage, leads Edna strongly in a direction toward her own life’s goals. ![]() Edna learns, through reflection on her lack of contentment, that her marriage is the foundation for individual, social, and even paternal expectations that concern, depress, and overwhelm her. Chopin characterizes Edna’s marriage as a factor in her unhappiness, but also as a factor in her budding awakening. Edna doesn’t particularly know, especially in the beginning of the novel, what is wrong, just that she is unhappy. Her marriage is both a source of positive and negative influence on her, in that it both confines, imprisons, and depresses her while also providing her with an impetus, reasoning, and inspiration for her individual aspirations and pursuits. In Kate Chopin’s novel The Awakening, Edna’s marriage is complicated. ![]()
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