The Awakening Themes

(Click the themes infographic to download.) The Awakening is largely about an identity crisis. Dissatisfied with her labels as "wife" and "mother," Edna Pontellier seeks an independence that is h...

(Click the themes infographic to download.) The restrictions and expectations imposed on Edna Pontellier in The Awakening are based purely on her gender. The societal structure of the Victorian E...

(Click the themes infographic to download.) In The Awakening, marriage is a huge barrier to happiness and individual fulfillment because the archetypical marriage had an "I Tarzan, you Jane" dyna...

(Click the themes infographic to download.) In The Awakening, love is a fantasy. It’s used in jest by the Creole community (Robert Lebrun in particular), and we also know that Edna has a histor...

(Click the themes infographic to download.) The Awakening features that age-old conflict between the individual and society. Is it more important to conform or to be yourself? Our protagonist Edn...

(Click the themes infographic to download.) Repression plays out subtly in The Awakening, as the open, "free-speaking" Creoles who are partly responsible for Edna’s awakening (artistically, sex...

(Click the themes infographic to download.) In The Awakening, producing real art requires holding a position outside the societal mainstream. The lives of the two artists we see in The Awakening,...

(Click the themes infographic to download.) In The Awakening, Edna Pontellier challenges her role as a mother while Adele Ratignolle fulfills it to a tee. Motherhood is not a dynamic or fluid con...

(Click the themes infographic to download.) In The Awakening, the main characters live in a society obsessed with reputation. Mr. Pontellier in particular carries this obsession out to unhealthy...

(Click the themes infographic to download.) In Kate Chopin’s day, ideas about the human psyche (including the subconscious) were just beginning to gain momentum. Regardless of whether Chopin wa...