The Awakening Kate Chopin
Simons, Karen. “Kate Chopin on the nature of things.” The Mississippi Quarterly 51.2 (1998): 243-252.
The wakening by Kate Chopin is seminal feminist writing commenting on the struggles of women in a male-dominated society. Through the protagonist Edna, the author presents women as the struggle with the expectation of society as well as answering to the natural urges and the challenges of motherhood. The woman is, therefore, at the center of the text as they try to conform to the expectations while at the same time, respond to personal needs. Karen Simons, in her article “Kate Chopin on the nature of things” strays from the conventional notion of the interpretation of the text as struggles of women and the societal expectation. The article interprets the case of Edna Pontellier as the forces of nature against the woman will embrace the natural. The article posits that Edna lives in the imaginary world, and she finds it hard to accept the forces of nature. Edna is a woman struggling with society and struggling with herself, and she cannot agree to go by the forces of nature, which ultimately wok against her.
The articles, therefore, focus on the struggles of Edna herself creates since she refuses to abide by the forces of nature. The society works in an ordered way which the community itself sanctions. Edna becomes a mother, and it is this moment that she has turned around as she now cannot have self as well as motherhood at the same time. The author uses the Lucretian philosophy to support the argument. According to the Lucretian understanding, there are not places for abstraction and spirituality. It is only the natural world that exists, and the protagonist fails to have a grip on life as she fails to accept the natural order around her. There was no way she was going to have a self as well as motherhood at the same time.
Relevance
The article by Karen Simons provided a different view from the conventional interpretation of the text by Chopin. The feminist approach to the book is considered more traditional as the protagonist struggle with her life and the forces around her lead her to her suicide. The approach by Simons is different, providing another perspective of the texts, but it is not without shortcomings. The forces of nature, according to Simons, are absolute and there is no point yearning for something heightened or spiritual the author pints o that Edna lives in abstractions which leads to her failure to fit I society. However, it is not a limitation that someone wants to connect on higher levels other than what the society expects of her. It is true Edna sometimes wanted more than she could get as all the suitors or those he had an attraction for were unattainable. However, it is not explicitly correct to say all she wanted was an abstraction, and she could not get it. He partner lea her after saying he could no longer take the affair that they had because he loved her too hard. From this point, Edna crumbles.
The article, therefore, carefully explains the forces of nature and the lac of the spiritual. From this perspective, the natural forces are those of society, and there seems to be no different. The society has no abstractions, but the feminist issues raised in the tax cannot be overlooked.