Awakening To Eternity

At the end of 19^th century, a generation of New Women appeared on the stage of world history. They showed their abilities and advantages through various ways in different social fields such as politics, economics, literature, etc. Kate Chopin, living at that time, was one of the New Women who tried to make themselves recognized by the world using their pens. However, only until recently, Kate Chopin was rediscovered by the world as one of the greatest American writers and the pioneers of feminist literature. Her most controversial work, The Awakening used to be viewed by the traditional critics in a male-dominated society as an immoral book because of its bold description of the process of a new woman to fight against social norms and fetters imposed upon women and to seek her independence and self-realization. The book was banned and forgotten gradually by people for a long period of time. Until 1960s, with the fast development of the World Women's Liberation Movement, more and more people have realized the value of this book. The comments about this book are quite different, even contradictory. The viewpoint of this thesis is in accordance with those positive comments, holding that The Awakening is a book of revolutionary spirit and its author a writer ahead of her time.This thesis intends to reconfirm the importance of The Awakening to both the world literature and Women's Liberation Movement. Although still a controversial novel nowadays, it has its great social and literary significance. The revolutionary ideas of Kate Chopin expressed in this novel through the seemingly "crazy" deeds of the protagonist Edna are quite reasonable if judged by our current points of view.This thesis is composed of three chapters, besides an introduction and a conclusion. The first chapter confirms this novel's value, praises its author's courage to challenge the traditional morals at the end of 19th century, and gives asystematic analysis.on the social background of 1960s and the reasons why The Awakening was reappraised at that time. The second chapter is the main part of this thesis. It deals with the novel's protagonist, Edna Pontillier's general awakenings, including social, sexual and intellectual ones, with a detailed analysis on the reasons as well as the process of the awakenings. As to the reasons for the awakenings, this thesis tries to analyze them from two aspects: an objective one, which is Edna's unhappy marriage;a subjective one, which is Edna's double personality. This chapter also gives some space to Edna's suicide, the summit of her awakenings, and the causes of this tragic ending. The third chapter deals with the awakenings of the self-consciousness of World Women's Liberation Movement and the author herself. These awakenings bring to the author profound perplexities, including the perplexity brought about by three ways of existence of women, the complexity of sex, the contradiction between rights and obligations and the sense of loneliness in women's pursuit for liberation. Edna's awakening described in the novel is actually the reflection and fusion of all these factors.