Chopin’s husband provided her with freedoms that most women didn’t know during this period.Įdna’s husband, though, acts very differently. In the 19th century, women’s lives centered around the will and whim of their husbands.

Léonce, Edna’s husband, only furthers Edna’s feelings of confinement and loneliness. Her independence in her marriage is something that her protagonist, Edna, did not enjoy. She gave birth to five boys and two girls before she was 28 years old. Throughout her married life, Kate Chopin was well known for her intelligence, independence, and the amount of freedom that her husband permitted in their marriage. She was the only child in her family to live past the age of twenty-five. Kate Chopin was born Kate O’Flaherty in St.

Setting: New Orleans in the late 19th centuryĪs a female writer who is best known for writing about a female protagonist, Chopin has been compared by many to her main character, Edna Pontellier.

Genre: Bildungsroman (or coming-of-age novel).

Antagonist: Society and its expectations of women.

Sadly, the novel’s end coincides with the fate of many 19th and 20th-century women, especially writers, whose quests to find happier, more independent lives end in suicide. These desires, and her struggle to achieve them, set her apart from everyone around her, particularly other married women who seem content in their day-to-day lives. The novel focuses on Edna’s attempts to find more freedom in her restrictive society and gain independence over her body and mind. This early feminist novel blends together social commentary with a realistic and deeply moving narrative. It is set in New Orleans at the end of the 19th century and follows Edna Pontellier, a woman who stands against the prevailing social attitudes of the time, supporting feminist beliefs and views on motherhood that no one agrees with. ‘The Awakening’ by Kate Chopin is an 1899 novel that’s regarded as one of the most important feminist novels of the 19th century.

The awakening novel by kate chopin