The Awakening by Kate Chopin was not one that I could totally grasp what was going on right at first. I could tell from reading this story that Kate Chopin was a very independent woman, and one that probably did not have the easiest childhood. I read a little in our book and realized that the story was about a woman named Mrs Pontellier. I could also tell right away that Kate Chopin was obviously an realism writer. "Realism is the attempt to depict life as it actually exists, not as the author wants it to be in the present or the future, or imagines it was in the past" (Werlock). When Kate Chopin was writing this excerpt, it was during a time during/ after the civil war when women were trying to find themselves, and they were trying to figure out what they were supposed to be doing in life and also what they wanted from life. I saw realism when Kate said in the awakening, "Turning, she thrusts her face , steaming and wet, into the bend of her arm, and she went on crying there, not caring any loner to dry her face, her eyes, her arm" (Chopin, "The Awakening, 491). We saw in this passage by Chopin that she was just crying, and was not paying attention to anything else but her own thoughts. She was just sharing the what was really going on in her life, whether she wanted it to or not, and how it affected her so much emotionally. In the Awakening, Kate was just sharing about a woman named Mrs. Pontellier who was trying to find herself in a hard time.
Kate Chopin also wrote another writing that we can find in our American Literature textbooks called The Story of an Hour. The Story of and Hour and The Awakening are kind of similar in that they both are talking about a woman that is dealing with some very strong emotions, that are really important in her life. The main woman in this one is called Mrs. Mallard. Mrs. Mallard is a very upset woman and is crying in this excerpt, but we actually can figure out the main reason for her tears. She is crying because she really was coming to realize that her love was dead, and all that was going to go along with that. She was realizing that she was going to be all alone the rest of her life, and she was not going to feel any more love from him. "There would be no one to live for her during those coming years; she would live for herself" (Chopin, "The Story" 555). I really pick up a lot of realism writing in this passage. I think that Kate Chopin was a realist writer, because in The Story there was just so much sad things and a lot of tears. She was just trying to depict life as it actually exists (Werlock).
Kate Chopin was a great realism writer. I enjoyed reading her stories, and I like how she showed through her characters what she was going through then. It was a hard time for women in the time that she was writing these excerpts.
Chopin, Kate. "The Story of an Hour." American Literature Textbook. Columbus: McGraw-Hill, 2009. 553-555. Print.
Chopin, Kate. "from The Awakening." American Literature Textbook. Columbus: McGraw-Hill, 2009. 491. Print.
Werlock, Abby H. P. "Realism." The Facts On File Companion to the American Short Story, Second Edition. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2009. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. Feb 16, 2011.
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