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Example research essay topic: Chopin The Awakening Wife And Mother - 3,424 words

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In Kate Chopin 2 Sharp 1 In all of Kate Chopin s writings she placed a great deal of importance on the rights and freedom of the women of her time. Chopin believed that women should have emotional, sexual, and intellectual freedom and this belief was presented within the lines of all of her short stories, novels, and poems. (Gilbert, Gear 1012) The Awakening by Kate Chopin was considered very shocking when it was first published because of it s sexual awakening of the main character, Edna Pontellier, and her unconventional behavior. (Nickerson, web) The Awakening begins at Grande Isle, a vacation spot of wealthy Creoles from New Orleans. Edna is there with her two sons and her husband Leone who comes and goes because of business. Edna has always done what is expected of a woman including marrying a man she didn t love.

He regard her as a possession rather than a person. While on vacation Edna meets and falls in love with Robert Lebrun and they begin an whorl wind affair. Edna is distraught when she finds out that Robert has left her because he loves her: I love you. Good-bye, because I love you. (Chopin The Awakening) Edna is so distressed that she returns to Grand Isle where she goes swimming in the cold sea.

Purposely she swims out too far and drowns herself. Even though it was written in the Victorian era, Kate Chopin s The Awakening has several romantic qualities which are present in a number of her short stories. This storys romanticism deals prominently with the main character, as she struggles between society s obligations and her own desires. Chopin writes about a woman who continues to reject the society around her, a notion too radical for Chopin s peers. Edna Pontellier has the traditional role of both mother and wife, but deep down she wants something. It never satisfied Edna, who always seemed out of place when with other women to be just a Victorian Woman.

She was a wife and mother, but not a typical Victorian wife and mother. With regards to her children, Their absence was sort of relief It seemed to free her of a responsibility which she blindly assumed Sharp 2 and for which Fate had not fitted her (Chopin The Awakening) Already she is revealing ideas uncommon in the Victorian era. She tries to maintain her roles, but it is very difficult for her. Victorian society was not ready for a novel whose main character disregards the norm for her own happiness. The rejection Chopin received was mainly due to Edna s rejection of the traditions and the adultery aspect of the story. In revealing her love for Robert, her romantic passion is expressed.

I love you, she whispered only you; no one but you. It was you who awoke me last summer out of a life- long stupid dream. Oh! I have suffered, suffered!

Now you are here we shall love each other, my Robert. (Chopin The Awakening) Romanticism is evident as the novel ends and Edna completely rejects the Victorian ways. With Chopin s ending, she creates an idea that her society cannot accept. Edna tried to maintain her role as long as she could, but it became too much for her life, and she needed to do the best thing. In her mind, that meant killing herself in the water which had no boundaries and no restrictions. In Kate Chopin s short story The Storm, the narrative surrounds the brief extramarital affair of two individuals, Calixta and Alc. Many critics do not see the story as a condemnation of infidelity, but rather as an affirmation of human sexuality.

If you are going to interpret The Storm, it becomes necessary to examine the conditions surrounding the story s beginning. The story was written shortly after Chopin completed The Awakening, the boldest treatment so far in American literature of the serious, independent woman (Seyersted 164). The Storm was not published until well after Chopin s death, probably because of the sensuousness of the story for that time period. In his critical biography Kate Chopin, Per Seyersted argues that The Storm is objective in its portrayal of human sexuality and that Chopin is not consciously speaking as a woman, but as an individual (Seyersted 169) The title of The Storm, with its obvious implications of sexual energy and passion, is of course critical to any interpretation of the narrative. (Wilson 23) Chopin s title refers to nature, Sharp 3 which is a symbol for feminism.

The storm can be seen as a symbolic meaning for feminine sexuality and passion, and the image of the storm will be returned to again and again throughout the story. At the beginning of the story, which is divided into five parts, Bobinot and his young son Bibi decide to wait out a rapidly approaching storm at the store. Bobinot s wife, Calixta, is home alone, tending to the household chores. The second part begins with Calixta being unaware that a storm is approaching. She sat at a side window sewing furiously on a sewing machine.

She was greatly occupied and did not notice the approaching storm. But she felt very warm and often stopped to mop her face on which the perspiration gathered in beads. She unfastened her white sacrum at the throat. It began to grow dark, and suddenly realizing the situation she got up hurriedly and went about closing windows and doors. Out on the small front gallery she had hung Bobinot s Sunday clothes to air and she hastened out to gather them before the rain fell. (Chopin The Storm) Calixta s unbuttoning of her jacket foreshadows the sexual encounter to come with Alc, but her actions suggest something greater. She is unaware of the storm s approach; although she is married and has a child she is unaware of the sexuality and passion within her.

He sexuality is repressed by the constraints of her marriage and society s view of women. The passage about housework and her husband s Sunday clothes alludes to the church s importance to society. (Pickering 210) As Calixta is gathering up the laundry, Alc+ e Laballi+ re enters the yard, seeking shelter from the coming storm. The readers immediate impression of Alc+ e is that he is a man of the world; this contrasts sharply with the authors presentation of Bobin++t in the first section. He is seen as a simple man, an intellectual equal to his four-year old son: Bobin++t was accustomed to converse on terms of perfect equality with his little son (Chopin The Storm) There is a mutual Sharp 4 attraction between Calixta and Alc+ e, and this attraction is not new: (Pickering 211) She had not seen him very often since her marriage, and never alone (Chopin The Storm). Their acquaintance with each other is explained in another Chopin story, At the Canadian Ball (1892), but in this earlier story the attraction between Calixta and Alc+ e is only briefly explored.

With Alc+ es arrival comes the beginning of the rain, and he asks to wait out the storm on the front gallery: May I come and wait on your gallery till the storm is over, Calixta? he asked. Come long in, Msieur Alc+ e. His voice and her own startled her as if from a trance, and she seized Bobin++ts vest.

Alc+ e, mounting to the porch, grabbed the trousers and snatched Bibi's braided jacket that was about to be carried away by a sudden gust of wind (Chopin The Storm). The apparent difference in formality with which they address each other is important; Alc+ e addresses Calixta informally, as befits a man addressing a woman, but her response is almost somewhere between formality and informality. The trance that Calixta is startled from is her sudden awareness that she is still sexually attracted to Alc+ e, even though both are constrained by their respective marriage vows. Alc+ e grabs Bobin++ts pants, symbolically uprooting the social and marital constraints that control Calixta. The strength of the ever-increasing storm quickly drives Alc+ e inside, and it even becomes necessary to put something underneath the door to keep the storm out: Calixta rolled up a piece of bagging and Alc+ e helped her to thrust it beneath the crack (Chopin The Storm). The imagery here is obviously sexual, but it is important to note that it is Calixta who is the initiator of the thrusting'; Alc+ e only helps her to keep the storm out, and therefore the storm of sexual passion in.

Chopin next creates a paragraph that details Calixta's appearance: She was a little fuller of figure than five years before when she married; but she had lost nothing of her vivacity. Her Sharp 5 blue eyes still retained their melting quality; and her yellow hair, dishevel led by the wind and rain, kinked more stubbornly than ever about her ears and temples. (Chopin The Storm). Nowhere does Chopin suggest that this is Alc+ es vision of Calixta. The authors purpose in describing Calixta, then, is to clearly link the protagonist to sensuality and passion, to the very elements of the symbolism of the storm. (Wilson 24) The storm outside continues to increase, reflecting the sexual tension inside. Calixta and Alc+ e move through the rooms of the house until they are adjoining Calixta's bedroom, and we see the lack of passion in marriage represented by the separate beds that Calixta and Bobin++t have. The rooms description also hints at the mystery of passion: The door stood open, and the room with its white, monumental bed, its closed shutters, looked dim and mysterious (Chopin The Storm) The images in the bedroom seem to contrast one another, the white purity of innocence versus the dark mystery of sin, but there is also irony in the images: neither Calixta nor Alc+ e are pure, but the forbidden knowledge of sin would be seen by their society as being more the province of men than of women (Evans http: //falcon.

jmu. edu) Calixta begins to gather up a cotton sheet that she has been sewing, in effect putting away a symbol of society's constraints. She is becoming as unsettled as the elements outside, the passion of the storm echoing her inner emotions. Calixta and Alc+ e move to a window to watch the storm, and when lightning strikes nearby, Calixta staggers backward into Alc+ es arms, and for a moment he draws her close and spasmodically to him (Chopin The Storm). Alc+ e has apparently not, until this point, sensed the passion that Calixta feels: The contact of her warm, palpitating body when he had unthinkingly drawn her into his arms had aroused all the old-time infatuation and desire for her flesh (Chopin The Storm). Chopin presents both Alc+ e and Calixta as sexual beings, but she is clearly focusing on the sexuality of her feminine protagonist: Her lips were as Sharp 6 red and moist as pomegranate seed.

Her white neck and a glimpse of her full, firm bosom disturbed him powerfully. As she glanced up at him the fear in her liquid blue eyes had given place to a drowsy gleam that unconsciously betrayed a sensuous desire. He looked down into her eyes and there was nothing for him to do but to gather her lips in a kiss. (Chopin The Storm) Calixta and Alc+ e embrace, giving in to the storm of passion that is now present in both of them. It is Calixta's sexuality, her passion, her sensuality that threatens to deluge Alc+ e.

Chopin again alludes to the characters previous attraction, providing further commentary on society's views of feminine sexuality: Do you remember in Assumption, Calixta? he asked in a low voice broken by passion. Oh! she remembered; for in Assumption he had kissed her and kissed and kissed her; until his senses would well nigh fail, and to save her he would resort to a desperate flight. If she was not an immaculate dove in those days, she was still inviolate; a passionate creature whose very defenselessness had made her defense, against which his honor forbade him to prevail. Now well, now her lips seemed in a manner free to be tasted, as well as her round, white throat and her whiter breasts. (Chopin The Storm) Calixta's passion, held back before marriage by society's views on premarital sex and virginity, is now free to be experienced by both Calixta and Alc+ e.

They cast aside the constraints of society and the boundaries of their respective marriages, and Chopin says that Calixta is knowing for the first time [her] birthright (Chopin The Storm), the birthright of feminine sexuality and passion. Calixta's generous abundance of passion is now without guile or trickery and it finds response in depths of his own sensuous nature that had never yet been reached (Chopin The Storm). Even though neither has found passion of this depth in their respective marriages, Chopin presents the incident as arising from Calixta's passion and sexuality: (Pickering 202) When he touched her breasts they gave themselves up in quivering Sharp 7 ecstasy, inviting his lips. Her mouth was a fountain of delight. And when he possessed her, they seemed to swoon together at the very borderland of lifes mystery. (Chopin The Storm) Chopin contrasts the very real existence of feminine sexuality with society's unwillingness to admit that it exists by describing their lovemaking with an unreserved sensuousness that would have been far too direct for the society of Chopin's time.

The storm outside gives way to a soft rain, and the torrential downpour that was symbolic of passion and sexuality now becomes symbolic of a cleansing purification. The author implies that female sexuality is pure and without sin. Indeed, as Alc+ e leaves, he turns and smiles, and Calixta laughs out loud; her passion is seen to be natural, experienced without guilt or shame (Evans web). In the third part of the story, Bobin++t and Bibi return home after walking through the mud left behind by the storm. Here Bobin++t is presented as a good and kind man, who has been thoughtful enough to try and tidy himself and his son up and to have bought his wife a can of shrimps. They enter the house prepared for the worst the meeting with an over-scrupulous housewife (Chopin The Storm); this is somewhat ironic, as Calixta had forsaken all of her marital duties in submitting to her passion.

Calixta does not reproach them for their appearance, but instead greets them with nothing but happiness and satisfaction at their safe return. After she finishes preparing supper, the family sits down to dinner and they laughed much and so loud that anyone might have heard them as far away as Laballi+ res (Chopin The Storm). For Calixta, the story ends with her renewal of her marital duties; she is now aware, however, of the true extent of her natural, passionate, sexual nature. The last two parts of the story serve to further emphasize the authors views concerning passion and marriage. Alc+ e writes a loving letter, full of tender solicitude to his wife; although Sharp 8 he misses her, he is willing to bear their separation another month if she desires to remain at Biloxi with the babies a while longer, realizing that their health and pleasure were the first things to be considered (Chopin The Storm). His wife is perfectly happy to remain at Biloxi: the first free breath since her marriage seemed to restore the pleasant liberty of her maiden days.

Devoted as she was to her husband, their intimate conjugal life was something which she was more than willing to forego for a while (Wilson 34). Alc+ e, like Calixta, is newly aware of the depths of the passion within himself, and this passion is not satisfied within the boundaries of his marriage. The final line of The Storm is important in its relationship to the work as a whole. The line seems to be inserted by chance into the story: So the storm passed and everyone was happy (Chopin The Storm). There is a purpose in the ambiguity of the ending, however; it allows Chopin to create an ending that unifies her central theme (Pickering 212). Throughout the narrative, she presents feminine sexuality through the imagery of the storm.

Her protagonist is unaware of the sexuality within herself, and it is only by casting aside the constraints of society and marriage that she is able to know her true birthright, feminine sexuality. Chopin is not arguing that one can only acheive this knowledge outside of marriage, but rather that it can only be achieved in the absence of societal constraints; her unreserved portrayal of feminine sexuality would have been seen as a radical affront to the society of her time. The ending is therefore purposefully vague: one may see the storms passage as implying a happy ending, or one may see it as implying that the storm will eventually return, perhaps with the intent to destroy. Kate Chopin, however, sees feminine sexuality as something that is pure, natural, and very real in its existence; one cannot assume that a brief and limited awakening that passes like a storm will be enough to make one happy. Unlike Awakenings and The Storm, A Pair of Silk Stockings is a tame writing of Kate Chopin's.

There aren t any sexual innuendoes present in this story. A Pair of Silk Stockings Sharp 9 is a fun little piece that one can imagine didn t cause one critic to blink. Although the story isn t sexually charged, there is a common theme in all of her writings, a female as the main character. In this story the main character is Little Mrs. Sommers and she is a mother of an unspecified number of children. Mrs.

Sommers has just come into a large amount of money, well what seemed to her as a large amount of money. Mrs. Sommers has found herself with fifteen dollars. The question of what to do with the money was something that she takes into great consideration. While laying in bed she thinks off all the things she could buy her children. Mrs.

Sommers and her family aren t very wealthy so the story implied, but never actually said. This woman is a mystery because not much is known about her background. Chopin gives a superficial view of this woman and her family. A husband is mentioned once, but readers aren t given an in depth view at who he is and what role he plays in the life of Mrs.

Sommers and her children. The children themselves are also a mystery. The are mentioned once as a passing thought and then put into the background. Although Mrs.

Sommers intends to buy things for her children the longing to have finer things for herself takes over and those thoughts are quickly forgotten as she is possessed by the things she see in the stores. She indulges in all the finer's things that she has seen on her way to the bargain racks, and the temptation becomes to strong and she goes on a shopping spree. As in Chopin s previous stories this female character also goes against the grain of conventional society, by buying what was wanted and not what was needed. She expressing a sense of independence and selfishness unconcerned with others in her life, but only seeing her needs or in this case her wants.

She forgets about the outstanding needs of her children which in the beginning of the story were so poignantly pointed out. In the end Mrs. Sommers realizes that Sharp 10 her fantasy day is over as she boards the trolley. A man on the trolley notices her not because of an attraction, but because her can see on her face a longing for the trolley to take her anywhere, but backdrop where she came. In conclusion, Chopin s stories whether centers of controversy or short quiet little pieces have a feminist point of view. The needs and wants of the female lead character are paramount to all coinciding details presented within the storys plot.

A reader can conclude from Chopin s stories that she believed in women s liberation, even before the movement begun. Her stories may have been an escape for all women in her time that could relate to the oppressed Edna Pontellier, the unaware Calixta and the dreaming Mrs. Sommers. 322


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