The Loneliness

A detailed Summary of The Loneliness

In Kate Chopin's novel The Awakening, she tells the story of a confused woman trying to find her place in the world. This woman, Edna, would fit perfectly into 21st century America, but on the eve of the 20th century she was a fish out of water. She did not want to be thought of as her husband's property, or just someone's mother, she wanted to be an individual and make her own decisions. Going against the norm of the time caused Edna to isolate herself and alienate her family. She would have never started this journey if she had known that it would have led to her isolation. Because of her devotion to this voyage, Edna ultimately drowned in an ocean of intense loneliness, which caused her to neglect her responsibilities and in the end led to her demise.

Edna's problems started when she was young. Without a mother and with an absence of love from her father, she didn't get the love she needed, and in turn did not have a foundation by which to judge love. The absence of this foundation always left her feeling as if something was missing from every relationship.

As a young girl, she fell in love with a cavalry officer who was visiting the family farm. In her inexperience, she did not understand that

As Edna emerged form a cocoon that the world used to oppress her, she started to observe her status in a different light. No matter what other people were saying to her, "She resolved never to take another step backward" (95). Edna liked the look and feel of her newfound freedom and she would never give that up. She was glad to think of herself as a person and not just a wife or a mother or a daughter. No longer felling like Leonce's property, she was a new woman, a woman who had independence. This left her with nowhere to go, because she no longer fit into the roles society had placed on women. Alone and hopeless, she drowned in her sorrows at the bottom of the ocean.

a grown man would not fall in love with a child, therefore he became her first crush. She continued to fall for men she could not have; a man engaged to her neighbor, a tragedian. These were men she could easily love without the worry of them breaking her heart. She never learned what true love was, an unconditional love that not only takes, but also willingly gives in return. Not finding this love from her father, she settled for the next best thing, security.

Not finding her love in her children or her husband, she turns to Robert, who is nothing more than a playboy. At first he saw merely another rich ma

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Approximate Word count = 873
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: Novels

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The Loneliness

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