DIAS, Vanuza Gonçalves.
Abstract:
The objective of this research is to analyze women rise in the nineteenth century in the novel
The Awakening (1899), by the American writer Kate Chopin from a feminist perspective.
Knowing that literature is a mean to give voice to women, it is clear that Kate Chopin used
this way to criticize the social conditions of the feminine figure in her gender relations in a
patriarchal society. Therefore, the novel The Awakening was strongly criticized for dealing
with these issues that went against the Puritanism of the Victorian Era, such as, adultery and
the search of female emancipation, and especially for having been written by a woman. This
research, through the protagonist, Edna Pontellier, offers an analysis of the gender relations
and how she behaved in each space, showing woman’s conflicts about her existence and
conditions imposed on her. Besides, this work takes into consideration the narrator's
perspective on the role given to women in that patriarchal society. Thus, this research is of
bibliographical nature and in order to foment such discussions, it is based on the theoretical
support of Woolf (2004), Zolin (2005) and Moreira (2003), among others. Finally, this study
shows the discovery of Edna’s subjectivity, her rise and eventual "fall", especially because
death is one of the characteristic ending of the female pen, as a criticism to the lack of viable
option for a feminine freedom.
