The Awakening

The Awakening, to me, is a novel about the oppression of marriage during the Victorian Era. Women in those days were expected to act as housewives and mothers and nothing more. In the novel, the main character, Edna, is deeply uncomfortable in these roles and is misunderstood by those around her because of this. Léonce Pontellier, Edna's husband, sees her as most other men view women and wives during this period--as a possession. Because she is so different from the other women around them, he comes to think of her as a negligent mother and a distant spouse. However, Edna cannot bring herself to let go of her individuality and her freedom--she obviously feels trapped in this marriage, though she apparently does not know why, because she says multiple times that her husband is a good one. She probably has no reference for what she is feeling, no precedent, and because of this, she feels like she's suffocating.