Hello, Fellow Classmates!
Today, we had a socratic seminar about the novel The Awakening by Kate Chopin. Many of us were unable to share our thoughts during the time of the seminar, and I know that it can be terrifying/ difficult to speak up about what you have also thought about during a topic that was bombarded with comments then quickly brushed aside before you could speak. For everyone out there who feel the same way, I'm starting a blog post where we can all comment on what we thought about earlier today. Feel free to comment what you thought during your period's socratic seminar and let us begin our own Socratic Seminar -- cyberspace version. This blog post isn't completely confined to those who weren't able to speak out, so really this thread is just for whoever wants to talk more about The Awakening. There's no time limit on this one... If you ever feel bored or filled with thoughts, drop a comment about The Awakening and I'm sure someone will respond.
Do what you want and 'Awaken' your ideas.
The floor is open.
The floor is open.
During 2nd period, we talked a lot about if Edna was immoral or not. Many of us talked about how Edna was immoral in that she neglected her duties that she should have upheld considering that she had multiple kids and a marriage she vowed to. Ms. Fletcher added in that back then, women really only had about 4 options, one of the biggest option being marriage to another man. I thought about what Edna could have done in this situation in which she would be able to follow her awakening and yet still stay moral, but in the middle of my thought, I realized that it was a good thing that Edna chose to abandon her duties as a mother. In an age where women were expected to be a housewife, Edna's choice to have affairs and neglect her children were necessary in poking a hole at the wall of expectations women were bound to. Any other choice that upheld the purity of their marriage would not be as effective as her immoralities because these specific immoralities are really the only antidote to the poison of social standards. Even though her actions were essentially immoral, Edna's behavior was justifiable in that she wasn't immoral and that she had no other choice but to strike down the role of motherhood that every woman was bound to obey.
ReplyDeleteI just wanted to start by saying that I don't think it's justifiable to cheat on your husband with another man and then cheat on that man with some sort of Prince Charming character nor is it okay to neglect your children by leaving them with their grandmother for months at a time while sending them sweets to make up for the love that isn't given to them, but I thought about Edna's morality the way Jeremy did, and I have to say, I do agree with what he has to say about her actions. Though they are obviously questionable, she does have reasons as to why she acts the way that she does. Edna wants more than what she has because she is unhappy. She doesn't necessarily mean harm to anyone. Going back to what Aijah said this morning in second period, I think that though her actions were immoral, I don't believe she, herself, is an immoral person. I think that a character like Edna is a difficult one to piece together because she isn't the kind of female protagonist that we usually identify with or are familiar with. She's flawed and complex. I think that because we automatically think of strong female protagonists to be more like Adele, the epitome of what a woman "should" be, we, in contrast, perceive Edna as immoral in relativity to the high-standard "model" woman we have been systemized to understand. We just aren't used to seeing that more imperfect side of characters, so when we do come across ones like Edna, we mindlessly judge them harder than others.
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