Fiche De Lecture: la nouvelle The Awakening de Chopin

The Awakening By Kate Chopin

"The Awakening " is a novella by Kate chopin published in 1899 . It is a realistic novel because the story might have be real ; this novel describes perfectly the society of the time

well as the role of the womens in the society during the victorian era .

This is a very feminist book which defends the liberty of womens , Edna the heroine awake

and wants to have the right to express and live freely versus the expectations of Victorian society.

The Man Characters :

Edna pontellier :

The novel's heroine . The wife of Léonce and the mother of two boys, she is presented as as a rebel and independent women .Her "awakening" forms the core of the plot.

One might think that she is selfish because she abandons her husband and children .

Leonce pontellier :

Edna’s husband. Léonce is a stern patriarch with very clear ideas about what a woman's preoccupations should be. In his eyes, Edna's only aims in life should be the orderly maintenance of the family estate and the care of their two sons. He becomes genuinely confused at his wife's gradual desire for emancipation, which goes against all the social conventions of the time.

Mademoiselle Reisz :

she has no family and happily lives alone, not caring what society thinks of her.

She is a Piano player ;this is an independant women who likes art and love .

Medemoiselle Reisz has a friendly relationship with Edna .

it is the woman that Edna could have become, had she lived into her old age and remained independent of her husband and children.

Robert Lebrun :

The son of the owner of the resort of Grand Isle where summers Pontellier family. Rober is the lover of Edna.

Edna and Robert have a relationship which is the central conflict of the novel. He moved to Mexico, under the pretext of looking for opportunities to escape a relationship that has no chance of survival. His return from Mexico further complicates matters and leads to the tragic end of the novel.

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