Before we start to discuss how does Kate Chopin present the question of gender in The Awakening, I think I have to give a little background of the story. The story took place in the late 1800's, while women's liberation was never be concerned about. At this time women were supposed to find happiness in serving their husbands and also taking care of the children.
The setting was in the society of Grand Isle, and it had many expectations on its women that are belong to their husband and also suppose to be subordinate to their children, too. In Edna's society, there were lots of "mother-women," who "idolized their children, worshipped their husbands, and esteemed it to a holy privilege to efface themselves as individuals". The characters of Adele Ratignolle and Mademoiselle Reisz represent what the society views as the appropriate and inappropriate woman figures. .
Mademoiselle Ratignolle was the ideal Grand Isle woman, a home-loving mother and a good wife; however, Mademoiselle Reisz was the old, unmarried, childless, musician who devoted all her life to music, rather than to a "regular- family. Edna hesitated and tried to find her true identity between these two women, that whether she was a mother like woman or something else. However, Kate foreshadows us in the beginning of the story that "Mrs. Pontellier was not a mother-woman."" Yet when Edna begins to acknowledge her feelings of independence, she soon encounters the conflict from restriction, most obviously, from her husband. And when she makes the decision to abandon her former convention lifestyle, Edna realizes that independent ideas cannot always translate into all together self-sufficient and social acceptable way.
In the beginning of The Awakening, the narrator said that Léonce thinks of Edna as "the sole object of his existence."" In other words, woman was like a property for man at that time, and also Edna can't escape from this convention, too.
Kate Chopin depicts the ignorance and the stupidity of racism and chauvinism in a realistic way. ... Chopin does a very nice job of making a point and telling an interesting story. ... Chopin addresses social issues with regards to race and gender in this story. Chopin is well known for her writing about gender related topics. ... Kate Chopin was one of these individuals who was down on her luck with six children. ...
This is evident in Kate Chopin's "The Story of an Hour": when we apply a feminist theory lens, we see marriage as a tool to control women and how being a wife is gendered role "The story of an hour" is about Mrs. ... In "What does it mean that Gender is Performative?" the transcript of an interview between Max miller and Judith Butler, Judith Butler said " we've taken on a role that we're acting in some way and that our acting or our role playing is crucial to the gender that we are and the gender that we present to the world Think about how di...
Madame is surprised at how the child, a boy, has grown. ... What does it mean?"" ... Themes Racism and Gender Bias Like many other American men of the mid-nineteenth century South, Armand Aubigny bases the worth of a person primarily on his or her race and gender. ... As master of the L'Abri plantation, he is a strict taskmaster who treats the slaves harshly "so much so, the narrator says, that the "negroes had forgotten how to be gay." ... Although his manner softens after the child is born, his demeanor remains in question. ...
