Thesis
Kate Chopin's Edna Pontellier and the sea of her humanity: the reading of a suicide
Washington State University
Master of Arts (MA), Washington State University
05/2016
Handle:
https://hdl.handle.net/2376/103122
Abstract
In "Kate Chopin's Edna Pontellier and the Sea of Her Humanity: the Reading of a Suicide," I contend that Kate Chopin's The Awakening introduces readers to one of the most radical female protagonists of the nineteenth-century. Edna Pontellier confronts, and ultimately rejects, society's pre-scripted binary gender roles. As The Awakening opens, Edna is a woman in motion, fluid, bottled up, and, I assert, her inner self is beginning to leak to the surface. Chopin's Edna is steeped in the force of gender performance imposed upon her by hegemonic norms. Though she has spent most of her life living in compliance with the culturally constructed expectations for her gender, Edna's awakening leads her on interior quest that defies the external boundaries of her times. In the midst of what would seem outwardly to be a good life, Chopin's Edna Pontellier confronts what it means to discontinue living in a conflicted state of duality. This undoing of the doubled self is her awakening. While critics are divided upon the subject of Edna's death, Chopin reveals Edna Pontellier to be progressively strategic and intentional as the novel unfolds. Thus, The Awakening leads the reader on a journey; it is the reading of a death, but also of a brilliantly laid out argument revealing suicide as the only accessible route of escape.
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Details
- Title
- Kate Chopin's Edna Pontellier and the sea of her humanity
- Creators
- Amy L. May
- Contributors
- Carol Siegel (Chair)Donna M. Campbell (Committee Member) - Washington State University, English, Department ofDonna L Potts (Committee Member) - Washington State University, English, Department of
- Awarding Institution
- Washington State University
- Academic Unit
- English, Department of
- Theses and Dissertations
- Master of Arts (MA), Washington State University
- Publisher
- Washington State University; [Pullman, Washington] :
- Number of pages
- 69
- Identifiers
- 99900525066001842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Thesis