O'Dowd Peter Intro to Literature Professor Polke The Importance of Men in The Awakening Throughout the recent stories that I have read this year, I have been able to conclude that the general role of men is to be in control of relationships as well as the structure of society. While we have been presented with several different personalities within men, it is clear to see that in the end--they dominate the social order and maintain a confident reputation. For example, in the novel, The Awakening by Kate Chopin, we are presented with several significant male characters that have varying traits. Robert, on one hand, experiences an awakening just as Edna has. He comes to a crossroad, wherein he must choose between leaving to go to Mexico in order to sacrifice his `inappropriate' love for Edna or pursuing those feelings. On the other hand, we grow familiar with Alcee Arobin. He defies society's expectations as well as becomes intimate with the married protagonist, while at the same time is an idolized male of the the New Orleans community. Finally we are presented with a typical business-oriented male of the 1800's, Edna's husband--Lonce Pontellier. Lonce knows what he wants of his wife, and expects obedience. While all these characters contain different personalities, they display many overbearing and similar traits. One of these traits is confidence. For example, Leonce continuously leaves his wife and children to go on business trips or hang out with his friends. While staying at the resort during the summer, he goes to play billiards and has confidence in the fact that Edna will take care of the children and obey his requests. With Leonce, business consumes his life so much so that he treats Edna as if she an
employee were of sorts. For instance, when he unreasonably disputes with his wife, he sends her a gift rather than verbally apologize in any way. However, he can only hold on to his reputable structured family for so long. His overconfidence and lack of intimacy inevitably leads to the demolition of their relationship. While Robert shows in-confidence while disputing between pursuing his love for Edna or not, he displays other forms of self-assurance while leading up to his ultimate awakening. He makes bold decisions, such as moving to Mexico to escape the fear of falling in love. For a long period of time, he has control over not revealing his feeling towards Edna. Love is a hard thing to keep bottled up, however, Robert knows what is appropriate and tries his hardest to hold back and maintains his duty as a gentleman. In the end he made the right choice, even after he proclaimed his mutual love to her. Alcee, while he lives his life without care for others, also practices extreme confidence. He believes that he is better than the typical social structure. He knows how to grasp the physical attention of women and grow intimate with them because of this self-assurance. He is a professional seducer and playboy, who develops a reputation simply by having no regard for reputation at all. While Edna had touched each of these people's lives intimately, they understand that life goes on. Even though Robert truly falls in love with her, he does not let that become the exclusive control of his decision making. We can truly get a gist of the importance of men during this era, simply by looking at how their images and reputations affect their actions, even during situations of overbearing emotion and desire.