Most cultures put heavy emphasis upon responsibility and duty. The culture portrayed in Kate Chopin's book The Awakening visibly reflects a similar emphasis. The main character finds herself wanting to stray from her responsibilities and embrace her intense desire for personal fulfillment. Edna's choice to escape shows two elements: rebellion to the suppression of her adventurous spirit and the lack of "fulfillment" in her relationship. Although she embraces her new found freedoms, she commits suicide at the denouement of the book due to her frustration with the world around her.

Many philosophers have dealt with the question of whether to live a life of servitude or to pursue ones greater happiness. Immanuel Kant stipulates that the more people cultivate their reason, the less likely they are to find happiness. Kate Chopin's character Edna tries her entire life to fit in the prescribed mold of the women of her time. She invests so much time into duty and responsibility that she loses any happiness that she could hope to achieve. With time, Kant noted, the person who devotes their life to reason finds themselves needing a release, in the end desp

After being "reasonable" for the twenty-eight years of her life, Edna breaks down. She wants to pursue love and disregard her duty to her husband and children. She falls in what she considers "girlish" love with the character Robert. She proclaims to him:

Ayn Rand objectivism states that a person should live life by pursuing their abilities and engaging in trade of equal value with others. Further her philosophy states that working for another's good or sacrificing your self for another's happiness goes against the very nature of existence.

Edna was not engaged in the pursuit of her finest abilities. She lived her life for others, not for herself. In the initial text it states that "Mrs. Pontellier was not a mother-women," she did not truly fit that profile until further along in the novel. For the duration of her marriage she stayed in her place as a child-bearing wife, doing little but existing for the pleasures of her husband as a prized token more than a companion.

This quote states the simple truth that Edna, by nature, is not a "mother" in the classic sense of the word. She loves her children, though she cannot provide them the same type of nurturing, and care as the Creole women around her. She simply will not allow her inner self to be crushed by the bounds of mother hood. By nature she craves freedom and happiness, and as a mother she can neither provide that to her children or herself.

Her unwillingnes

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Approximate Word count = 996
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)