"The Awakening"

Paper Summary:

This book examines the characters in the story "The Awakening." The author details the relationships between the male and female characters in this story. The story takes place during a time when women were first beginning to realize that they were being treated badly and were beginning to assert their independence. The men in her Edna's life are portrayed as possessive, cowardly and self-serving who only try to help themselves. The author traces Edna's awakening and the beginning of her journey to a better life and time.

From the Paper:

"Robert is the cowardly man in Edna's life. He is a man who "each summer at Grand Isle had committed himself the devoted attendant of some fair dame of damsel..sometimes a young girl or a widow; but more often as not some interesting married woman"(53). He revels in the fact that Edna is attracted to him, but is cowardly when he comes to feel that love full-force. He shows his cowardly ways in his note "Good-bye -because I love you"(172). Loving Edna would create too many hardships for him so he runs away. Again, she is put in despair by another man because her whole life seems to depend more on their actions and feelings that upon her own. The value of life itself is diminished by the hurt of each man she tangles with."

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