A review by maggiegirouard
The Awakening by Kate Chopin

challenging emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Overall I liked the book, it was very interesting from a feminist literary perspective. I personally did not like the main character edna, at least after finishing the book and sitting on it for a day. I thought she was rash, oblivious, and ignorant. She thought she was freeing herself at the end, but
her death was not freeing, she could have gone on living a life she wanted to and achieving things, she could have taught her children and other people what she learned, and most of all, she is perpetuating the cycle she grew up in, without a mother, by leaving her children motherless.
I admire Adele and I think edna took much of her advice the wrong way. I think Adele was a feminist in her own way, and that Edna did not and could not see that. To me Edna is not this enlightened feminist who finds herself, she is a troubled woman who does not know where she is in her life and does not know where she would like to go. She seems to appreciate the things she has and the things she has learned about herself, but she lets it all go at the end very suddenly. I think I would need to read the novel again to understand Edna and her actions. 
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