Searching for Identity In

Abeshaus 2014

AP Language

There are 4 major sections to address in this typed assignment. I recommend that you review the provided materials prior to reading the novel, so you can be looking for the evidence that you will need to complete each of the four sections.

Romanticism, Realism, Naturalism, and Local Color

The Literary Context of The Awakening

How does The Awakening reflect the conventions of literature (i.e., literary movements) at the end of the 19th century? Read about the 4 literary movements below and choose one on which to focus your response.

Four major literary movements can claim some aspect of The Awakening, for in this "small compass . . . [is illustrated] virtually all the major American intellectual and literary trends of the nineteenth century" (Skaggs, 80).

The Romantic movement marked a profound shift in sensibilities away from the Enlightenment. It was inspired by reaction to that period's concepts of clarity, order, and balance, and by the revolutions in America, France, Poland, and Greece. It expressed the assertion of the self, the power of the individual, a sense of the infinite, and transcendental nature of the universe. Major themes included the sublime, terror, and passion. The writing extolled the primal power of nature and the spiritual link between nature and man, and was often emotional, marked by a sense of liberty, filled with dreamy inner contemplations, exotic settings, memories of childhood, scenes of unrequited love, and exiled heroes. In America, Romanticism coalesced into a distinctly "American" ideal: making success from failure, the immensity of the American landscape, the power of man to conquer the land, and "Yankee" individualism. . . . The major writers of the period were Irving, Cooper, Emerson, Poe, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Whitman, Dickinson, and Melville.

Realism developed as a reaction against Romanticism and stressed the real over the fantastic. The movement sought to treat the commonplace truthfully and used characters from everyday life. [A dedication to verisimilitude is the basic precept, thereby providing a “slice of life,” an “accurate representation of reality.”] Writers probed the recesses of the human mind via an exploration of the emotional landscape of characters. This emphasis was brought on by societal changes sparked by The Origin of Species by Darwin, the Higher Criticism of the Bible, and the aftermath of the Civil War.

A deeper, more pessimistic, literary movement called Naturalism grew out of Realism and stressed the uncaring aspect of nature and the genetic, biological destiny of man. Naturalists believed that man's instinctual, basic drives dominated their actions and could not be evaded. Life was viewed as relentless, without a caring presence to intervene. Twain, Crane, London, Norris, Howells, James, and Dreiser were the major writers of this movement.

Local Color writers were an offshoot of the Realistic movement. They sought to preserve a distinct way of life threatened by industrialization, immigration, the after effects of the War, and the changes in society. Their writing concentrated upon rendering a convincing portrait of a particular region and delving below the surface picture to reveal some universal aspect. A local color work "is one in which the identity of the setting is integral to the very unfolding of the theme, rather than simply incidental to a theme that could as well be set anywhere" (May, 195). Women local colorists were concerned with the place of women in society and the moral designs called for in a life. Freemen, Stowe, Harris, Chesnutt, and Cable were all important local colorists.

How does The Awakening reflect the conventions of literature (symbolism) at the end of the 19th century? Choose 2 symbols from the novel and track how it works in the novel, using the criteria listed below.

Symbols in The Awakening

The Awakening is a novel full of symbolism; within each narrative segment there is often a central and powerful symbol that serves to add meaning to the text and to underline some subtle point Chopin is making. Understanding the meaning of these symbols is vital to a full appreciation of the story. Here are listed some of the major symbols with explanations of their import. It is important for you to discover symbols and meanings on your own, and these are here only to offer assistance. It might also be useful in considering all symbols in the text, not just those listed below, to remember this quote by Sandra Gilbert:

Porches and pianos, mothers and children, skirts and sunshades - all these are the props and properties of domesticity, the key elements of what in the nineteenth century was called "women's sphere," and it is in this sphere, on the edge of a blue gulf, that Edna Pontellier is securely caged when she first appears. . . she is confined in what is not only literally a "woman's sphere" but, symbolically speaking, the Woman's House. . . every object and figure [here] has not only a literal domestic function and a dreamlike symbolic radiance but a distinctively female symbolic significance. (47)

http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/eng384/symbols.htm

There are many categories of symbols in The Awakening:

Art / Birds / Clothes / Food / Houses / Moon / Music / Swimming / Ocean, Gulf, Sea / Sleep

For each symbol (2 minimum), 1) track quotations, 2) explain the context of quotation as associated with symbol, and 3) analyze the meaning or significance of each.

CHARACTER ANALYSIS

How does Kate Chopin use other characters in The Awakening in order to cast Edna Pontellier’s desires—and social limitations—in sharp relief? Choose one character from the list below and discuss how this character serves as a foil to Edna.

Madame Ratignolle / Mademoiselle Reisz / Mariequita
(see Ch. 12) / “lady in black” / Madame Lebrun / “the lovers” (young couple) / Quadroon Nurse
Leónce Pontellier (Edna’s husband) / Raoul and Etienne Pontellier
(Edna’s children) / Robert Lebrun / Alcée Arobin

As you complete your character analysis, please provide: 1) a description of the character (who they are as a person), 2) his/her relationship to Edna, and 3) his/her role, job or place in society.

Searching for Identity in

Kate Chopin’s The Awakening

How does The Awakening speak to the roles of women at the end of the end of the 19th century? Analyze the novel in terms of one of the five types of identity described below. Be sure to discuss the motif of “awakenings” as relevant and appropriate to each of the identities.

1. “I-Book”: self-centered self-discovery, self-understanding; seeking strength and control over one’s own life; sanity vs. identity; silence vs. voice

2. Female: the role of women in society; silence vs. voice; wife/slave vs. mythical hero/woman warrior

3. Mother/daughter (parent/child) relationships

4. Familial: balance between being a strong individual and being a meaningful part of a collective; responsibility to self vs. responsibility to the demands of the family

5. Ethnic identity and racial prejudice: heritages that both conflict and enrich; confusion and pain from ingrained cultural heritage

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Electronic Texts

E-texts of The Awakening are freely available at the following locations:

The Awakening available through the Library of Southern Literature (via Documenting the American South)

The Awakening made available by UVA's E-Text Center, a resource available through EDSITEment-approved Center for Liberal Arts

[Technical Instructions: In a web browser, you perform a text search by selecting the Edit menu, then selecting Find, then typing or pasting the search term into the box]

http://edsitement.neh.gov/view_lesson_plan.asp?id=524