Anachronisms in Their Own Time

Paper Summary:

There were many women in the 19th century who were seen as superfluous. These were the women who were neither nurturing wives and mothers, nor painted ladies of the night. They could find no place in society. This was an idea present in America, France, and Russia. This paper examines how these ideas were captured in Kate Chopin's "The Awakening," Gustave Flaubert's "Madame Bovary," and Leo Tolstoy's "Anna Karenina". The main characters of each of these novels became living anachronisms.

From the Paper:

"Edna Pontellier seeks a sexual and spiritual awakening to fill her void, but both are thwarted by her lack of purpose. Francesco Pontuale explains the plot of The Awakening in "The Awakening: Struggles toward L'ecriture Feminine," "In it, the protagonist, Edna Pontellier, struggles to reclaim her body, acquaint herself with a whole variety of sensations, and live out a sensual relation to the world" (38). Pontuale forgets, however, to mention that Edna fails in her quest, which is the central point of the book. The reader is dragged on her voyage to realize this central point. As Robert Lee Mahon states in "Beyond the Love Triangle: Trios in The Awakening," "In sum, the focus of the novel is Edna, and what Edna learns, and what we learn about Edna as she does" (228). Therefore, the reader does not see Edna as being obsolete at the beginning of the novel."

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