Awakening Journal

     Independence is something that is taken for granted in modern times. The women who can do whatever they want to do have forgotten about the past. In the 1800s, women would have a limited amount of independence. That applied especially when they had a family of their own. Only the husband would support the family and the women needed to do whatever their husbands asked them to do. The extent of oppression in their lives during that time was displayed in The Awakening, by Kate Chopin. However, The Awakening focuses on a woman's journey to break free from her oppression and find independence and individuality. Another story by Kate Chopin, Emancipation: A Life Fable, gives a very symbolic representation of women escaping "the cage" of oppression that they were placed in. Women's oppression had become part of culture by then, yet, some women still sought independence because of writings by people such as Emerson, Thoreau, Wheatley, and Whitman, who wrote about the power of the individual.

     A Life Fable tells about an animal that has been placed in a cage since his birth. He has grown up with the bars constantly around him, limiting what he does. Despite the fact that he lives in a cage, he is taken care of and is healthy. Having only known life in a cage, he is accustomed to it, however, one day he becomes aware that the door of the cage is open. When he first notices the door, he is fearful to step into the big, vast world. Finally, though, gathering his courage, he runs through the open door into the world with so many options. He starts living for himself and taking care of himself. The animal that was born in a cage is symbolic for oppressed women, which includes Edna, from The Awakening. Edna, like the animal, was born into a world in which women had restrictions; a cage placed around them. She grew in the role which society had given her and was taken good care of. Slowly, however, deep inside she feels her oppression.

     "Turning, she thrust her face, steaming and wet, into the bend of her arm, and she went on crying there… She could not have told why she was crying." (Kate Chopin)

Edna begins to notice the door of the cage standing open. She begins to pay more attention to that open door after she spends her vacation with Robert, in which she realizes how unhappy she is in her life that she shares with Leonce. At first, she is afraid to leave the cage, as was the animal; however, she grows more restless in her cage as Leonce tries to make her talk to people who were coming to the house on Tuesdays. She refuses to obey Leonce, though, and leaves the house every Tuesday, thrusting her head out of the cage. Leonce did not reprimand her and thus Edna continued to stick her head out of the cage.

     Edna finally takes the wild dash out of her cage when Leonce leaves for a business trip. When she is left alone is when she truly becomes free. She begins to find herself and live for herself. Edna visits her friends frequently and seriously takes up art. After a while, she truly becomes independent, earning her own money by selling her paintings and by betting on horses. With that money, she buys a house around the corner from Leonce's house. At this point she has begun to embrace her freedom, not caring what the cost is. Upon buying the house, she abandons her husband and her children. She gives her passion to Arobin and her love to Robert, even though she is married. Thus Edna left the cage she had known since birth, like the animal, and became free.

     Although Edna and the animal are very similar, there are a few ways they lived which varied.

   "When [the animal] thirsted water was brought." (Kate Chopin)

That was not so with Edna. Edna was not as dependent on people as the animal. She was able to do some things for herself; however, she was still oppressed. Edna is also unlike the animal in that, while the animal lived the rest of his life in freedom, Edna becomes overwhelmed by the freedom, and dies.

     In The Awakening, Edna reads a book written by a specific author.

   "Then Edna sat in the library after dinner and read Emerson until she grew sleepy." (Kate Chopin)

It is reasonable to believe that Emerson's book greatly encouraged Edna to become independent. Kate Chopin referred to Emerson in her writing for a reason. Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman, and Wheatley all write about the same theme: individualism and independence. In Civil Disobedience, Thoreau states the importance of individualism.

   "If a plant cannot live according to its nature, it dies; and so a man." (Thoreau)

He strongly believes this, as does Emerson.

   "Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles." (Emerson)

As Edna is living and changing, she learns what Emerson and Thoreau already knew: that people need to be individuals.

     Wheatley, as well, believed that people should be independent. During the American Revolution, she wrote a poem to Washington telling him, "Proceed, great chief, with virtue on they side, They ev'ry action let the goddess guide." She wanted America to be independent from England; probably with the end result of achieving the confidence the people have from individualism such as in Whitman's song.

    "Overhand the hammers swing, overhand so slow, overhand so sure,

   They do not hasten, each man hits in his place."

      It is important to be an individual, to not have any restrictions placed on you and to do whatever you wish. That is why the United States wants separation of church and state. During the time of the Puritans, before church and state were separated, every Puritan was supposed to believe what the church taught. The Puritans had been placed in a cage of religion; though, they did not really notice how confined they were until Anne Hutchinson stated her beliefs which went against the church's beliefs. Anne Hutchinson was excommunicated for her beliefs. However, because of that, people later sought freedom from their oppression as Edna and the animal did.

    Individualism was an important theme among writers in the 1800s, such as Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman, Wheatley, and Kate Chopin. Kate Chopin's similar stories of the animal and Edna realizing that they are in a box and showing that there is a way to experience the individualism that other writers wrote about must have been extremely controversial at that time. Her views as well as others have affected us in more ways than one. Now, women are no longer living their lives under men, and individualism has grown even more in the United States so that no person or no religion is under another.