Awakening The Ending Essay, Research Paper

Although the stoping of Kate Chopin s The Awakening is a sad decision to an inspirational narrative, it does non compromise the cardinal subject of the novel. Alternatively of sing the terminal of the novel as Edna s failure to go on her chase of individuality and independency, one should see it as a failure of the society in which Edna lives to back up her freshly awakened ego. Edna finds it impossible to populate in her universe and keep her newfound individuality, and hence, finds suicide the lone option in which she does non hold to compromise herself.

Suicide is most frequently viewed as giving up to the force per unit areas that one faces. However, with Edna, self-destruction was the lone right pick for her, and by the terminal of the book, there was no one thing in the universe that she desired. except Robert. ( 557 ) . Despite her love for him, she refused to be Robert s married woman and travel from being one adult male s ownership to another. The lone other alternate with Robert would be to hold an matter which is non merely unacceptable to Robert, as he leaves her upon this petition, but it would besides be highly hard to carry through in their society and would certainly be damaging to the lives of her kids. A 3rd option is to populate as Mademoiselle Reisz did, in isolation from the remainder of society and without work forces in her life. Although, this may look to be a baronial women’s rightist move, Chopin did non depict Reisz as a epic figure and hence should non be viewed as such. She is described, alternatively, as a disagreeable small adult female, no longer, immature, who had quarreled with about everyone, owing to a pique which was self-asserting and a temperament to tread upon the rights of others. ( 486-7 ) . It is dubious that Edna would be happy populating the remainder of her life in the same mode. Consequently, Edna fulfills the earlier claim she makes to Madame Ratignolle in which she states, I would give up the inessential I would give my life for my kids ; but I wouldn t give myself. ( 504 ) .

The terminal of the novel in which Edna takes her concluding swim in the ocean and ends her life contains a great trade of imagination which supports this statement. Possibly the most popular symbol is that of the injured bird which is frequently viewed as symbolic of Edna & # 8217 ; s failure to go on her chase of individuality and independency. However, the fact that the bird is injured but non caged, as the bird in the beginning of the novel was, is really important. Edna does non give in to the societal conventions that have constrained her by returning to her & # 8220 ; coop & # 8221 ; , but is broken by them in her firm chase to withstand them.

Edna & # 8217 ; s concluding swim can be read metaphorically to depict her waking up, her struggles, and her eventual licking, which is soon brought upon her. From this reading it is made even clearer that Edna & # 8217 ; s suic

ide does non, in any manner, mean a deficiency of or weak strong belief. When Edna foremost goes down to the H2O she strips bare and feels like, “some new-born animal, opening its eyes in a familiar universe that it had ne’er known.” ( 558 ) . This is symbolic of the waking ups she has experienced throughout the novel and reaffirms her committedness and ardor for her newfound self-image She is awakened to herself as an person and is besides awakened to the world of the universe around her. This waking up, nevertheless, will convey her problem and decease, but as Edna asserted, it is “better to wake up after all, even to suffer” than to be a “dupe to illusions” all one’s life. ( 555 ) . Therefore, we see her walking into the ocean despite the “chill, ” or metaphorically, the cold response to her chase of independency that is expected from those around her. She besides continues despite how “deep” the H2O becomes, as she sinks farther into the convulsion that is ineluctable for a adult female during this clip trying to asseverate herself as an person. ( 558 ) . Edna realizes the dangers but is shortly reassured and comforted by the “close embrace” of the sea. These positive emotions that seize Edna, despite the climb danger she is in as she swims farther out, are natural feelings that result from deriving the freedom to be herself. It is at this clip that Edna returns to her childhood, a clip when the societal function of “woman” was non yet defined for her. She relates the sea to the blue-grass hayfield that she believed had “no get downing or end.” ( 558 ) . It was a topographic point devoid of bottlenecks and boundaries. Sadly, we are cognizant that this is merely an idealistic impression, for the society that brings Edna to the ocean is full of restraints that don’t let her to be herself. As mentioned earlier, the lone picks she has besides decease force her to compromise herself in some manner, which she is unwilling to make. She therefore loses strength, “exhaustion was pressing upon and overmastering her, ” ( 558 ) and she is “broken” from the force per unit areas of her society. Ironically, the lone manner Edna can prolong herself is through decease.

Unlike the belief of many, Chopin does non compromise the subject, the waking up of individualism, in her novel, The Awakening, with its fatal stoping. This subject is maintained and even strengthened with Edna & # 8217 ; s suicide for Edna upholds her newfound trueness to her ain individuality by taking her life. Through this stoping, Chopin adds a new component to the novel that deepens its significance, pragmatism. The world of Edna & # 8217 ; s state of affairs sets in when she can non get away the restraint that her society has on her. With this stoping Chopin & # 8217 ; s fresh moves from an inspirational narrative, bestiring its readers to & # 8220 ; wake up & # 8221 ; to their true egos, to a societal commentary, knocking societies and civilizations that don & # 8217 ; t let people, and more specifically, adult females, to make this.

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