Kira Schleich - Prompt 5

The novel The Awakening by Kate Chopin explores the realms of a complex woman within her high society, struggling to be her own person and, ‘never again belong to someone else’. Chopin challenges readers to question their stance on women’s rights. Through the theme of Water Chopin conveys Edna’s discovery of her inner-strength, her desire to express herself, and her rode to freedom. This theme is used by Chopin to explain women’s struggle to have rights as a human being.

            During her time at Grand Isle Edna learns how to swim for the first time. As she first begins to swim on her own she becomes, ‘intoxicated with power’, and ‘wants to swim far out, where no woman had swum before’. I feel that after this realization of her inner-strength Edna begins to stand up for herself throughout the book and deny her husband as well as her children the social duties that she is supposed to uphold.

Although this incident marks the beginning of her courageous acts, it also foreshadows the end of her life. Chopin cleverly conveys how swimming in the sea overcomes Edna’s emotions of freedom as ‘a quick vision of death smote her soul… [and for a second] appalled and enfeebled her senses’. This thought foreshadows Edna’s suicide at the end of the book. Chopin leads Edna full circle in her quest to break free and as Edna swims to the sea a second time, ‘She remembers the night she first swam far out… she did not look back now, but went on and on…’ This act of suicide exemplifies Edna’s freedom to choose what she will do with her life, even if it results in death. In my opinion portraying these two instances of Water is Chopin’s way of making a bold statement. She wanted readers to be shocked at what they read, to question her ideas, and to discuss them. In order for people to hear what she was saying, she needed to create drastic outcomes. This plot was a brilliant way to get readers attention and for them to take a second look at her books statements, and why Edna decided to kill herself. She wanted them to re-examine her novel and discover the overlying message that women should have rights and freedom.

I would give Kate Chopin’s The Awakening a 5. Chopin vigorously identifies the society at that time and how women were treated poorly. Through the theme of Water she conveys Edna’s desires to be her own person and her ability to do so. As she discovers her inner-strength through her first swim she begins to act for herself and her own thoughts. Even as she commits suicide at the end of the book she exemplifies her ability to be free. Both of these examples in the water convey freedom of women and their right to choose their own life. Chopin took a risk to stand up for women, and I believe she made a vast impact.