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The Awakening by Kate Chopin


Mademoiselle Reisz is another of Edna's good friends, and she is essential to Edna's "awakening." Mademoiselle Reisz is the old, unmarried, childless, musician who devoted her life to music instead. She sees the ways in which Edna is different from the other women at this time, takes her under her wing and supports her. The characters of Adele Ratignolle and Mademoiselle Reisz represent what society views as the suitable and unsuitable women figures. Mademoiselle Ratignolle is the ideal Grand Isle woman, a home-loving mother and a good wife. .
             The three women represent the three parts of Sigmund Freud's diagram of the mind consisting of the id, the ego, and the super-ego. The id consists of our innermost desires that lack logic and reasonability. Mademoiselle Reisz is representative of the id; she is an exaggeration of the new woman and possesses no concern that the people of the Grand Isle see her as crazy because she refuses to conform to their standards. The super-ego is the socially conscious and restricted part of Freud's diagram. Madame Ratignolle represents this part. She fits perfectly into what this society deems as appropriate. Finally, there is the ego. This part of the diagram is a virtual mediator between the id and super-ego, keeping both in check and wavering between the two. Obviously, Edna Pontellier is represented in this part of the diagram. She knows what society sees as appropriate for her through Madame Ratignolle and the super-ego, but wants to go against this with her desire to live for herself, her art and her spontaneous loves; similar to Mademoiselle Reisz and the id's influence.
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             This image of "The New Woman" stirred up questions about women's proper places, and men's proper places as well. Claire Kahane remarks that the New Woman .
             "threatened to turn the world upside down and to be on top in a wild carnival of social and sexual misrule" (38).


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