Oppression in The Awakening Essay

The Awakening by Kate Chopin puts an interesting perspective on the oppression of women. Some of the reasons behind the book being unnecessary are that, going into the ocean shows a strange way of showing her freedom. Also the ending makes the reader think that woman cannot survive on their own without men, which would make the moral to this story kind of cloudy. Lastly, it also seems unneeded that the narrator would relate the bird with the broken wing falling into the ocean to Ednas plunge into the ocean that killed her. The ending to a book like this one must have a powerful well rounded end that this book seems to lack.

The ocean is given a seductive trait that lures Edna into its embracement. This makes her seem like she is oblivious to what she is getting into which depicts her as being kind of ignorant or crazy. The ocean is a pointless place to go in order to get away from her family because the ocean serves as a barrier which cannot be passed.

Going into the ocean and having her die makes women seem like they cannot survive on their own in life without man. Men have all of the power in this book and have total control over women. With her dyeing like this she doesnt represent womens rights very well because this is an ignorant way of trying to get away from man. It would be more appropriate to have her travel westward toward the untraveled part of the country. By traveling westward she could still show her bravery and not end with her drowning in the ocean. She thinks of the ocean as having male traits to it and that is why she chose to drown in it, but the land also has male traits to it which could embrace her without resulting in death. She also expressed that she was artistic which could also be a plus to moving inland.

The bird with the broken wing falling into the ocean is also used to symbolize Ednas plunge into the ocean that killed her, but this symbolism cant compare to her because the bird is injured physically and she is only held back by oppression. A bird with a broken wing is much more limited in its options, while a women sick of being oppressed by men can still survive and move on or leave the oppressive environment that she is in.

The final passage in a book like this one needs to be powerful and convincing. In The Awakening the ending seems to leave the reader confused as to why Edna would drown herself just to get away from the oppression that she was being held under. There are too many opportunities to alter the ending to this book without make this a womens rights book. This shows that the ending could have easily been left out.