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Example research essay topic: Freedom And Possession Beloved The Awakening - 1,184 words

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In the past, women have put up a huge fight for their rights. They have had a long and difficult struggle to gain the freedom and possessions that they have today. Whether black or white, the women still faced similar struggles. They both had a dream to be free. They both had to fight to have a mind of their own.

They both had to run from their 'owners'. The fictions Beloved by Toni Morrison and The Awakening by Kate Chopin tell of these struggles. Even though Sethe is black and Edna is white, they have a similar fight for freedom and possession. Both Sethe and Edna decide that they are going to begin the struggle to freedom when they realize that they were considered possessions. Sethe, working as a slave, had seen her mother hanged, has had her milk stolen from her breasts, and has had a list of her so-called animal characteristics made.

She comes to realize that she is being treated as if she were a possession. She is simply a working tool to the plantation owners. They think of her as an animal. Just like any other object among someone's possessions, she has a value in dollars. Edna, being a mother and a wife, has also been treated as a possession. In comparison, Edna also has a "value." Her "'value' is a sign of Lines's wealth" (Stange 278).

As his wife, she is to look pretty, look wealthy, have children, and make Line look good. Both women know at some point that they cannot continue to live as another's possession; they must break free. Break free is exactly what they do. Sethe runs from slavery through the woods, pregnant. She does what ever it takes to have control over her own life. She is willing to flee without anything except the clothes on her scarred back.

She is willing to face the chances that she might be caught or killed. "Pregnant and thinking she is going to die because of her swollen feet cannot take another step, she wants to stop walking; every time she does so, the movement of her unborn child causes her such pain that it feels she is being rammed by an antelope" (Horvitz 96). Edna also runs. She leaves her husband and her children to live the life she dreams of. She does not care what society thinks of her actions. She thinks only about her self and what she wants. She disagrees the ideas of the Creole society that she should be one of the "women who idolized their children, worship their husbands, and esteemed it as holy privilege to efface themselves as individuals and grow wings as ministering angels" (Chopin 29).

Her only care is to make sure she is able to live for herself. No matter the consequences, both women have to be free. Both females leave their expected obligations to expand as individuals. Sethe leaves her position as a slave. Slavery is what is expected from her as a black person. She is there to work hard and produce more slaves.

She is not able to express thoughts or feelings of her own. Likewise, Edna's obligations are to be a wife and mother and to care for her children. She also is thought of as simply a producer. She is not able to express her own feelings or opinions. She is supposed to please her husband and raise the children. However, both Sethe and Edna are too strong and too opinionated to go on living life as they have.

Rather than be a possession, they both yearn to have a possession of their own. For Sethe, it was also "A matter of keeping the past at bay" (Morrison 42). Her possessions helped her live a new lifestyle and suppress the dreadful memories of her past. One of Sethe's very first possessions were her crystal earrings that Mrs. Garner, her master's wife, gave her after her wedding. Receiving earrings of her own was very important to her.

It was her first luxury, as a slave, of being free. It was the first thing she was able to own, rather than to be the something owned. In addition, Sethe takes much pride in her house; she even names it " 124 ." She refuses to leave her house no matter what is wrong with it or what possesses it. She gets a job in which she earns her own money and she spends that money on whatever she pleases. Her money mostly is spent on cloth in which she uses to make her and her daughters their own dresses. She cherishes very much everything she owns.

In The Awakening, Edna also needs to obtain something she can say she owns for herself. This is why she takes up painting. It is a hobby of her own, something she enjoys doing. It is something she can do to spend her own time.

Eventually, she sells these paintings and also uses her winnings from betting on horses to earn her own money. This money she uses to purchase her own house. Edna, however, wants not only to own something physically but to have her own feelings as well. She no longer wants someone to tell her when to have sexual feelings. She wants to be able to have these feelings at her own time. Both women want to become owners instead of the owned.

Unfortunately for both women, when they begin to fear returning to their old way of life, death becomes an option. Sethe promises herself that she will never let herself or her children live in slavery as she did. She would rather them face death than slavery. Therefore, when Schoolteacher, her old master comes for her and her children, she decides to try to kill them instead. She thinks death is a better place for them than slavery.

Edna also finally looks at death as an escape. When she realizes that she will never be able to get the life she wants and dreams of, her only way out of her past was to commit suicide. Both women see death as the only answer to the potential loss of freedom. Both of the women in these stories have similar struggles no matter their difference in race.

They both dream of becoming free, fight for their independence, and flee from their pasts. No matter their differences in race, they still face the same struggles. These two stories Beloved and The Awakening both reflect the movement of women towards freedom. It is a tough journey. However, women have fought through it and have come far as did Edna and Sethe. Works Cited Chopin, kate.

The Awakening. Ed. Nancy A. Walker.

Boston. Bedford/St. Martins. 2000. 29. Horvitz, Deborah. "Nameless Ghosts: Possession and Dispossession in Beloved" Critical Essays on the Toni Morrison's Beloved Ed.

Barbara H. Solomon. New York: G. K.

Hall, 1998. 96. Morrison, Toni. Beloved. Penguin Putnam Inc. New York. 1987. 42.

Stange, Market. "Personal Property: Exchange Value and the Female Self in The Awakening" Ed. Nancy A. Walker. Boston. Bedford/St. Martins. 2000. 278.


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