The_Awakening

The Awakening Music as one of the main themes in The Awakening: How do different characters perceive music' The Awakening by Kate Chopin is a novel of intellectual, spiritual, and moral evolution, as well as a novel of artistic development. In this essay I would like to focus on the artistic side of the work and analyze the impact of art, and especially music, on the novel’s characters. My aim is to prove that music plays a key role in the novel and serves as the main instrument of Edna’s awakening. Edna Pontellier, the twenty-eight-year old wife of a New Orleans businessman, is the protagonist of the novel, the title of which refers to Edna’s development throughout the story. After a series of impulses, Edna realizes how dissatisfied she is in her role as a wife and mother and she begins to act upon her newly discovered wishes and passions. She, through a set of “awakenings” – experiences which enliven her suppressed emotional ego, works herself up to a state of total self-awareness, discovers her own identity, and pursues her emotional and sexual desires. Edna becomes a woman far too independent for the Victorian society and, in the end, finds that people who had awakening, music, edna, chopin, mademoiselle, reisz, herself, art, ratignolle, one, novel, edna’s, through, first, way, upon, pontellier, pictures, madame, feelings, wife, very, twins, society, piano, passions, isle, hand, grand, woman, victorian, time, thought, themselves, state