The Awakening :: essays research papers

The AwakeningIn the novella The Awakening by Kate Chopin, two supporting characters, Madame Ratignolle and Mademoiselle Reisz, make for two distinctively different females of the straitlaced Age. Madame Ratignolle serves as societys idea of the rarefied wo small-arm. There is nothing subtle or hidden about her charms her beauty is only there, flaming and apparent the spun-gold hair that neither comb nor confining pen could stay fresh the blue eyes that are like nothing but sapphires two lips that pout, that are so red wiz could think of cherries or some other pleasing crimson fruit in looking at them. Her beauty is complemented by her extreme devotion to her family. They come first in her life. She is the quintessential mother- char. Mother-women are women who revere their children, worship their husbands, and esteem it a holy privilege to efface themselves as individuals and grow locomote as ministering angels. She gave up her individuality by taking marriage vows and beca me one half of the Ratignolle family. The Ratignolles understood each other perfectly. If ever a confederation of two human beings into one has ever been accomplished on this battlefield it is surely this union. Madame Ratignolle has surrendered to her husbands world as proper wives at the time were evaluate to do. She obeys her husband and assumes the responsibility of keeping him satisfied. She would not consent to remain with Edna when Monsieur Ratignolle was alone, because he detested above all things being alone.While Madame Ratignolle is the ideal Victorian woman, Mademoiselle Reisz is a disagreeable little woman, no longer young, who quarrels with almost everyone, owe to a temper which is self-assertive and a disposition to trample on the rights of others. When Edna asks the proprietor of the neighborhood grocery store if he knew where Mademoiselle Reisz had moved, the man answers that he thanks heaven that she had left the neighborhood, and was equally thankful that he di d not populate where she had gone. Mademoiselle Reisz is in no way the beautiful Aphrodite that Madame Ratignolle is. She is an old woman who is past her physical prime, although the reader gets the impression that, during her prime, her looks still left something to be desired. The community snickers at her because she wears false hair has poor taste in fashion. Mademoiselle Reisz has forever and a day lived on the top floors of apartment buildings, which takes her far away from reality and the problems of others.