In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century there was a strong movement busting through the United States and Europe. This movement known as the Women's Movement was helping women everywhere to realize that they have potentials to be something on their own, and to choose on their own future not to have it chosen for them. Documents such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton's Declaration of Sentiments, and Mina Loy's Feminist Manifesto gave females a bold realization of how oppressed they had been. Also, during this time period, many notable women writers surfaced, one of the best being Kate Chopin.
             Kate Chopin's "The Awaking" is the epitome of realism when dealing with the oppression of women and the woman's movement. In "The Awakening" Edna is a woman bound by traditionalism and forced into a role of wife and mother. Edna is miserable even though she has, what appears to be a perfect loving husband she does not love him back. The main reason this marriage is an unsuccessful one is that Mr. Pontellier, Edna's husband, regards her as a possession; not as an individual. This belief is also oh so common, and or realistic of this time period. Women were to be thought of as possessions by men and their place was to be in the home.
             It was not until Edna finds comfort in Mr. Robert Lebrun while she was vacationing with her family that she begins to realize her individuality. She is more tuned into her sense of self, almost like a new creature. After this discovery Edna begins to disregard her husband's wishes and often ignores her children. She goes out and learns to swim which is an outlet that makes her feel independent. The independence Chopin expresses here through Edna was a radical idea of this period. The alteration Edna is undergoing is one where she disregards society's view of a woman and focuses on herself.
             Edna, like other women of her time peri...