Wrong Place, Wrong Time

The Awakening, by Kate Chopin, presents a character that way ahead of her time. Published in 1899, Edna Pontellier has characteristics that appear many years after the book. During this time, the role of women revolves around the household, taking care of the husband and children. It is more accurate to name these women wives. But Edna is different. She feels uncomfortable with her situation, as surely more women did, but defies society, and gives more importance to herself as a human being, than to her role of a wife. Her characteristics portray her as a women of today.

Edna is a woman who does not fit the image of the women of that time. She is always defying the authority of her husband over her, and the chores that were given to her for being a woman. It is more the time that she spends wondering the streets, and failing her duties, than being a good wife or a mother. She never says he does not love her husband or her children but we are given the impression that she does not like to be with them.  In fact she says that she would give her life for her children, but not her self. On the contrary to almost every other women, she feels that her self is more important that her children and husband. That inner self that defines her is the most important thing in her life.

She is a complicated character, full of mixed emotions. Even though she gives the impression that she could live with out her family, when her husband left to New York, “she cried…calling him dear, goo friend, and she was quite certain she would grow lonely before very long and go to join him in New York.” (Pg. 136)  But at the same time, her children also left, and she felt “a radiant peace settled upon her when she at last found herself alone.” (Pg. 136) She even took over the kitchen and the meals, something that she had resigned of doing, maybe because she was doing only for herself, and not doing work for anybody else. Edna is happy alone, she feels relieved, but at the same time she misses her family and thinks about them; she cannot decide on what she really wants. It’s as if she was on a road to self-discovery, but is a long way from getting there. She knows for sure that the duties of the woman do not fit her, but she fails to know where she stands on love and relationships.

Edna does not fit in the society she lives in. She is much more similar to the women of today, who know give the same importance to work and the family. Back then women were 100% devotes to the household, but know it’s more balanced. Women are still related more to the household than men, but they are also given importance in the work force.  Clear examples are the high positions that women have, such as CEO or even presidencies of countries.