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Abstract:The Awakening stressed that if women wanted to gain self-being and self-independence they should abandon family and social responsibilities. This thought is too extreme. Women’s real freedom and independence could not be gained out of family and social responsibilities. And family responsibilities should not be seen as the fetter to women’s pursuit of self-being and self-independence, or it will cause a few problems in marriage and hurt themselves and other persons. Women’s real awakening is that there are no conflicts between family and women’s self-being. Only based on social harmony and family responsibilities, women could gain real self-being and that is women’s real awakening.
Key words:The Awakening freedom and independence self-being family and social responsibilities social harmony
The Awakening, Chopin’s major work, was published in 1889. It drew a storm of criticism for its "shocking, immoral, and vulgar" story and quickly went out of print. It is a story of a young wife’s gradual awakening to her own sexual and individual "being," and longing for independence and freedom not permitted by the society. The novel’s heroine, Edna Pontellier, was one of the Creole-the descendant of the French where women’s role was to accompany with husband and to raise children. In such society, women depended on men; they had no self-status but only someone’s daughters, wives, lovers, sisters or mothers. The story took place in a summer, when Edna and her family went to the Grand Isle for their holiday when Edna met Robert and slowly got on to her self-consciousness to break the role of women which was set by society. Edna left her husband and children to do what she like painting and to love Robert. However, in the end, Edna realized that she could not escape from the responsibilities as a wife and mother. By the novel’s end, Edna had awakened to herself, but found no place for that self in the world she lived. She swam out to sea till her strength was gone. (Kate Chopin, 1981)
As a women novel full of sharp feminine character, The Awakening caused a storm of controversial criticism as soon as it was published, especially for Edna’s immoral behavior to pursue her self-independence and freedom which disobeyed the traditional criterion. Furthermore, it brings us to the following questions: what’s the role women take in the society? What are women’s independence, freedom and individual being? What’s the relationship between women and men, between women and family? What’s the relationship between women’s independence, self-being and the family responsibility? Are these relationships totally opposite? Toward these questions, feminist and people with traditional thoughts have different or even opposite attitudes. And that is why this novel caused so much controversy. Moreover that is why the story ends in Edna’s suicide. Therefore, considering the effect it brought to the society and the questions it left to people, it is really a splendid novel with compound impact and great value to the society.
In addition, this novel left a more valuable question for readers to contemplate: how to evaluate the thoughts about women’s independence and self-development. In the author’s view, women are not men’s appurtenances. And she also doubted women’s role imposed by the society, in which role women’s main concerns in life were to raise their children and to obey their husbands. (魏兆秋,2000) Considering the description of women’s unequal role and responsibility in society and Edna’s resistance and reflection to this traditional customs in this novel, it has profound effect to our society because it was in the society of the nineteenth-century which gave a heightened meaning to what it means to be a woman: raise their children and obey their husbands. (倪晓燕,2002) Women’s equal rights had not accepted by the society, and as women, they suffered from this inequality and had to endure it. Therefore in this situation, the awareness of women’s independence emphasized in this novel has great impact and inspiration for women to pursue equality and to develop their independent awareness.
However, Edna, far from being the representative of the awakening of feminine self-consciousness, is not awakened at all. On the contrary, all that she thought and did is unrealistic, romantic, selfish and even absurd. (甘文平, 2004) In this novel, the author implied that women’s independence and self-development were contrary to family and society, especially family responsibilities, and so if women wanted to be themselves or be independent, they must or had to break the block of family and society, even to abandon the family responsibility. Undoubtedly, this thought is unrealistic. For hundreds of years, family has been an important and indispensable part in our lives. However, since late 19th century and early 20th century, especially since the start of women liberty movement, family was seen as fetter and restriction of self-development to women. Even the status of mother, wife, and daughter were seen as burden and fetter, too. Furthermore, some even made mistakes on the concept of wife and mother. They extremely thought that wife was such a person who did the housework and obeyed her husband; mother was such a person who looked after children at home, not common woman at all. Therefore, if they wanted to be independent and own freedom, they had to abandon this status of wife and mother to be real women. The British President, Tony Blair, his wife is a fine lawyer of human rights, in 2001, she wanted to put down her job for a short time and go traveling with her husband, however, this behavior caused a heated discussion in public. She was told that her behavior was like "a mistress". And some even considered her as an independent woman who should deal with vital issues but not only be a wife. So here is a question: for women, is family contrary to women’s independence? To deal with this question, we should first know what family is. Family is made on the base of love and responsibility; family provides protection for every family member, meanwhile, family responsibility is unavoidable for everyone. Actually, the consciousness of family responsibility is the base of family happiness. (刘彩玲,2005)
Key words:The Awakening freedom and independence self-being family and social responsibilities social harmony
The Awakening, Chopin’s major work, was published in 1889. It drew a storm of criticism for its "shocking, immoral, and vulgar" story and quickly went out of print. It is a story of a young wife’s gradual awakening to her own sexual and individual "being," and longing for independence and freedom not permitted by the society. The novel’s heroine, Edna Pontellier, was one of the Creole-the descendant of the French where women’s role was to accompany with husband and to raise children. In such society, women depended on men; they had no self-status but only someone’s daughters, wives, lovers, sisters or mothers. The story took place in a summer, when Edna and her family went to the Grand Isle for their holiday when Edna met Robert and slowly got on to her self-consciousness to break the role of women which was set by society. Edna left her husband and children to do what she like painting and to love Robert. However, in the end, Edna realized that she could not escape from the responsibilities as a wife and mother. By the novel’s end, Edna had awakened to herself, but found no place for that self in the world she lived. She swam out to sea till her strength was gone. (Kate Chopin, 1981)
As a women novel full of sharp feminine character, The Awakening caused a storm of controversial criticism as soon as it was published, especially for Edna’s immoral behavior to pursue her self-independence and freedom which disobeyed the traditional criterion. Furthermore, it brings us to the following questions: what’s the role women take in the society? What are women’s independence, freedom and individual being? What’s the relationship between women and men, between women and family? What’s the relationship between women’s independence, self-being and the family responsibility? Are these relationships totally opposite? Toward these questions, feminist and people with traditional thoughts have different or even opposite attitudes. And that is why this novel caused so much controversy. Moreover that is why the story ends in Edna’s suicide. Therefore, considering the effect it brought to the society and the questions it left to people, it is really a splendid novel with compound impact and great value to the society.
In addition, this novel left a more valuable question for readers to contemplate: how to evaluate the thoughts about women’s independence and self-development. In the author’s view, women are not men’s appurtenances. And she also doubted women’s role imposed by the society, in which role women’s main concerns in life were to raise their children and to obey their husbands. (魏兆秋,2000) Considering the description of women’s unequal role and responsibility in society and Edna’s resistance and reflection to this traditional customs in this novel, it has profound effect to our society because it was in the society of the nineteenth-century which gave a heightened meaning to what it means to be a woman: raise their children and obey their husbands. (倪晓燕,2002) Women’s equal rights had not accepted by the society, and as women, they suffered from this inequality and had to endure it. Therefore in this situation, the awareness of women’s independence emphasized in this novel has great impact and inspiration for women to pursue equality and to develop their independent awareness.
However, Edna, far from being the representative of the awakening of feminine self-consciousness, is not awakened at all. On the contrary, all that she thought and did is unrealistic, romantic, selfish and even absurd. (甘文平, 2004) In this novel, the author implied that women’s independence and self-development were contrary to family and society, especially family responsibilities, and so if women wanted to be themselves or be independent, they must or had to break the block of family and society, even to abandon the family responsibility. Undoubtedly, this thought is unrealistic. For hundreds of years, family has been an important and indispensable part in our lives. However, since late 19th century and early 20th century, especially since the start of women liberty movement, family was seen as fetter and restriction of self-development to women. Even the status of mother, wife, and daughter were seen as burden and fetter, too. Furthermore, some even made mistakes on the concept of wife and mother. They extremely thought that wife was such a person who did the housework and obeyed her husband; mother was such a person who looked after children at home, not common woman at all. Therefore, if they wanted to be independent and own freedom, they had to abandon this status of wife and mother to be real women. The British President, Tony Blair, his wife is a fine lawyer of human rights, in 2001, she wanted to put down her job for a short time and go traveling with her husband, however, this behavior caused a heated discussion in public. She was told that her behavior was like "a mistress". And some even considered her as an independent woman who should deal with vital issues but not only be a wife. So here is a question: for women, is family contrary to women’s independence? To deal with this question, we should first know what family is. Family is made on the base of love and responsibility; family provides protection for every family member, meanwhile, family responsibility is unavoidable for everyone. Actually, the consciousness of family responsibility is the base of family happiness. (刘彩玲,2005)