The Awakening Part 2: Seriously, what about the kids?

This book must be magical, because you don’t hate Edna at the end of the story for completely neglecting her children. The ‘family thing’ is only a scene where the drama takes place; she needed some good old fashioned handcuffs in order to justify how she acted and make it interesting. To state the obvious, this story is full of feminist undercurrents and liberation from learned gender roles. However, her lack of maternal instinct is a still... Read More

The Awakening: To Hell with the Kids Part I

Edna Pontellier is dynamic female character born in the wrong time period; when women’s roles were clearly defined as maternal and acquiescent. Through an awakening, Edna is inspired to express individualism– much to the dismay of an environment which stifled it. It’s this defiance which makes Edna Pontellier worthy of more than one article. So here is Part I to a little mini-series dedicated to this complex piece of classic literature. The... Read More