Awakening Tone
Emotions, feelings, thoughts, ideas, desires, and beliefs all play dominating roles in shaping the character of people, and no one can have the exact same character because everyone possesses special qualities that make them unique. Throughout Kate Chopin's novel The Awakening, Mademoiselle Reisz, the artist who symbolizes freedom, and Adele Ratignolle, the housewife who represents the ideal, devoted spouse, serve primarily as foils of each other while sharing some similar characteristics. While Mademoiselle Reisz belongs to the group of "artist-women", Adele represents the "mother-women" (Justus 73). These two women represent foils of each other because Mademoiselle Reisz loves music while Adele loves her family. Adele, the ideal housewife, thinks of life through a narrow tube bounded by the views of society, and she makes Edna feel as if she were packed and sealed into a box and would never be able to come out. Reisz thinks outside the box, and looks at life through an abstract angle in which society has no value. Thus, the image these two women portray in society contradicts greatly. According to Justus, "For Adele, complacent satisfacti
Mademoiselle Reisz tries "to reach Edna's spirit and set it free", but Adele Ratignolle tries to weaken it (Chopin 106). Resemblance between the two characters is obvious if their differences are set aside. Mademoiselle Reisz plays music because Edna takes pleasure in it, and Reisz cares about Edna because she displays qualities that differ from everyone else in society. Although Reisz and Adele are two different people they do have some similar aspects in the novel. Mademoiselle Reisz gives Edna a feeling of individuality, and Edna begins to recognize her inner thoughts and desires. Justus says that, "There is little comfort for Edna in either Madame Ratignolle or Mademoiselle Reisz. Since Edna is "the only one worth playing for", Mademoiselle Reisz plays music only for her enjoyment (Chopin 35). Situations in society are the same for both characters, but their ways of interpreting them differ. As Mademoiselle Reisz lives outside the boundaries of social norm, Adele Ratignolle would never dare to defy them. Even music differs among them because Adele enjoys music as a past time, and she disregards the deep symbolism in it. Also, both Adele and Reisz face the same society, and each one has to live in the same circumstances. Hobbies such as horse racing are not important to both women. on-never being alone-comes from having no identity beyond her given roles; for Reisz, the ambiguous satisfactions of having her own identity is the result of always being alone" (73).
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Acceptance Essays
