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Abstract：In this paper, the author intends to interpret The Awakening in feminist perspective. An analysis of the process of Edna’s awakening conspicuously witnesses her doomed fate in fulfilling the feminine.
Key words：psychoanalytic； feminist；awakening；identity
[中图分类号]：I106[文献标识码]：A
[文章编号]：1002-2139(2012)-08-0021-01
The Process of Edna’s Awakening
1. Edna’s awakening to freedom
Edna’s awakening to the hidden potentialities is the desire for freedom and the awareness to overcome the limitations which are imposed on her from outside world that determines her actions. In this respect, it gives another aspect to the significance of the title because Edna is awakened to the nature and the realization of personal freedom. In a period of few months, she awakens to her true self. Edna develops her aspirations of freedom and autonomy with reservation at the beginning, and meanwhile is seduced by the easy relations to the culture. The family physician is the first person to perceive the difference between the old Edna and the new.
2.Edna’s failure to analyze conscious and unconscious motivations
Unfortunately, Edna fails to analyze her own conscious and unconscious motivations. She acts largely on impulse. She hopes to self-express by way of being an artist but when she acts as an artist, she feels her strength, but she cannot transfer this strength to other aspects of her life. In spite of her weakness, Edna’s struggle for sexual and personal liberation is still very important. She frees herself from her social responsibilities in order to pursue her desire for individual autonomy, but she fails to shape a deep understanding of her situation. She is unable to explain what she is undergoing to anyone, including her attempt to explain to the Doctor.
3.Edna’s rejection to patriarchal romance
Despite her awakening and alteration, Edna does not surrender to her deepest patriarchally inscribed romantic fantasies. Admittedly, Edna loves Robert, yet it is the right not to belong to any man, and especially not her husband, that Edna struggles to obtain. Edna refuses the constraints imposed upon her by her marriage, yet she imposes equal constrains upon her lover. It can be seen that she wants to possess Robert instead of permitting Leonce to possess her. The narrator suggests here that Edna’s search for autonomy shows us her rejection of patriarchal rules. On the whole, the significance of the title mainly rests upon Edna’s best endeavors to gain freedom from the dominant patriarchal society.
4.Edna’s awakening to autonomy
From a psychoanalytical perspective, we can see that Edna is experiencing the feminine Oedipal crisis, that is to say, she is caught between the Imaginary and Symbolic Orders. She refuses her patriarchal gender identity, especially her relations with her father and laterher husband, but sadly, she is not capable of regaining the feminine thoroughly except in death. The family physician, Doctor Mandelet makes comments on the relationship between women and psychologists. But Edna resists her previous identification with the Father, so she has to seek a feminine alteration within her patriarchal culture.
Conclusion
Published at the turn of the century, The Awakening is an avant-garde novel depicting the struggles that were challenging for women. On the other hand, this piece of work maybe worth remembering in Edna’s pathetic story by a literary critic or even an ordinary reader. In the post-Freudian age, more critics tend to give credit on the novel’s extra-literary values, as it is being a pioneer.
Bibliography:
[1]、Kate Chopin. The Awakening. New York: New American Library, a division of Penguin Putnam Inc, 2004.
[2]、Madsen, Deborah L.. Feminist Theory and Literary Practice. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, 2006.
[3]、Martian, Wendy, ed. New Essays on The Awakening. Beijing: Peking University Press,2007.