In The Awakening, Kate Chopin makes a social commentary on how Edna was trapped by her society into a marriage that she did not want to be in and how her love should be able to set her free. I am not going to argue that social commentary (you are spared Ms. Demers) but the book, if taken into today’s time period, raises a different societal question, the ruin of the institution of marriage. In so many movies, books, and television shows, marriage is beaten down over romantic affairs and cheaters never get their just desserts. Edna, if taken out of her social commentary, was a cheater and is a perfect example of what is wrong with the country today.
Many problems can be blamed on the lack of respect for the union of marriage. Economic troubles have direct correlation with marriage status. In New York City, there is a divorce rate of 75%, and that was taken a few years ago so it may very well be higher. Education of children suffers if a child does not have both parents at home to pull attention from and get help because if a child has problems at home, then there is no use trying to educate said child. Many murders can be blamed on cheating wives and husbands. All these problems are because not too many people are left that care to work through a marriage and take the union as serious as it is.
Edna married because she felt that was her only choice, though it wasn’t, and because she married not for love and complete devotion, her marriage failed and she ended up killing herself for it. Marriage to the government may just be a legal relationship and a tying of bank accounts and medical consent, but marriage in the real world should, and was, a union of two people who were completely devoted to each other and till death do they part. Today, marriage is just done on a whim and if it doesn’t work, then people get divorce, tearing the children apart and ruining a chance at a normal life. Women have many different choices than get married.
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Ryan- I appreciate your views on the concept of marriage, it is a strong connection. Your passion on the subject is admirable. A couple things I'll want to talk about in class: It doesn't really serve any purpose to take Edna out of the society she exists in, and it is curious to me that you want to do so when it did not occur to you to take Okonkwo, Beowulf, Hamlet, Oedipus, or any of the other male heroes out the of the society they existed in, also, Edna did not end her life because her marriage failed!
ReplyDeleteI understand how you feel about marriage.
ReplyDeleteBut Edna isn't ending her marriage to have an affair with Robert, she's ending it because society is destroying her. Remember how she tells her friend that she wouldn't sacrifice herself for her children? She's like Howard Roark-being proactivly "selfish" in a world that will be shocked by her need to be in control of herself.
Also-just had another thought-no one is pinning the guilt for discriminating against women in the 1800's on you. Women themselves at the time believed that they were intellectually and emotionaly inferior to men, so there's no need to get all defensive. And maybe you shouldn't have brought up the hippies on Allison's blog :)
ReplyDeleteBut she brought up hippies and wherever hippies come up, you are suppose to bash them just like the little whack a moles
ReplyDeleteAh.
ReplyDelete