A busca pela identidade num mundo patriarcal: O Bildunsroman feminino em O despertar.

Abstract

This research aims at analyzing the novel The awakening (1899) by the American writer Kate Chopin (1850-1904) from a feminist perspective, highlighting aspects of the Female Bildunsroman, having as theoretical support the works of Maas (2000) and Pinto (1990), among others. It will be discussed the barriers and impositions faced by female writers in the 19th century concerning the publication of their works, mainly because their personal history and life context constitute relevant influences in the themes developed by Chopin, for example, what made her a writer ahead of her own time. Through Edna Pontellier, Chopin shows the hard road taken by the protagonist until she took notice of herself as a woman, mother, wife, artist and individual, what unveild to her the discovery of deep desires and the social limits imposed by the patriarcal system that truncated her formation. Edna, in discoveing her true self, changes behavior in relation to the pattern considered ideal for the female figure of the 19th century, culturally dominated by man. However, her personal choices took her to a unacceptable transgressive journey for that social context. Besides, after being in a sense rejected by her true love, Robert Lebrun, the protagonist surrenders herself to the waters of a golf, showing thus, therefore, an act both of bravery and independence, although suicide as a definitive answer to society. Thus, the protagonsit‟s process of formation is what caracterizes this novel as a female Bildungsroman.