Escape In The Awakening
The thematic thread that I sought to explore this year was escape. This subject caught my attention because of how escape comes in many forms and varies from person to person. Personally, I tend to escape by daydreaming, sleeping, or turning to my hobbies in order to take a mental break from my responsibilities, as a refresher, or as a way to relieve stress. However, my escape leaves my responsibilities behind and results in procrastination. Because I have experienced escape personally, I thought that it would be rather interesting to look into it more in depth. Often when people look at escape, they look at how the escape happens and what happens after that escape, or the effects. The varying effects of these escapes is what I wanted to look
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The reason why we experience different effects of our escapes is because of the different pressures we feel from society. Society played a strong role in the cause for Edna’s escape in The Awakening, when societies norms and rules caused Edna to feel suppressed. The societal norm that women take care of the household and family was not of any interest to Edna, but she was forced to uphold these duties because of how her husband and society both would disapprove of her actions should she not comply. When Edna escaped these responsibilities, multiple characters told her to return to societies ways, and to stop going against such societal norms by going back and caring for her children. However, such pressures from her peers to return to how things used to be was too much for Edna, as she didn’t want to return that way of life, but also didn’t want her children to grow up without a mother or with a mother with an awful reputation. Because Edna couldn’t do either without sacrificing her freedom or her family, she decided to drown herself, as she couldn’t bear to live a life with freedom while sacrificing her family or living for her family with no freedom at all. This kind of situation is similar to the real world in how society can push people to commit suicide with its many rules that oppress us as people and the freedom we have in how we can act or conduct ourselves. Such societal pressures cause people to take the easy way out, by escaping their problems. “Because it’s easier, because [you] don’t / [have] to think” (Halperin 2-3) such escapes are caused. Not all escapes caused by societies pressures end in death, but it is one effect of such escapes. Another effect of societies pressure or rules can be seen in how Ma is looked at as odd when she continues to breastfeed Jack at the age of five and when Jack is scolded for touching his cousin’s private parts.
The reason why we experience different effects of our escapes is because of the different pressures we feel from society. Society played a strong role in the cause for Edna’s escape in The Awakening, when societies norms and rules caused Edna to feel suppressed. The societal norm that women take care of the household and family was not of any interest to Edna, but she was forced to uphold these duties because of how her husband and society both would disapprove of her actions should she not comply. When Edna escaped these responsibilities, multiple characters told her to return to societies ways, and to stop going against such societal norms by going back and caring for her children. However, such pressures from her peers to return to how things used to be was too much for Edna, as she didn’t want to return that way of life, but also didn’t want her children to grow up without a mother or with a mother with an awful reputation. Because Edna couldn’t do either without sacrificing her freedom or her family, she decided to drown herself, as she couldn’t bear to live a life with freedom while sacrificing her family or living for her family with no freedom at all. This kind of situation is similar to the real world in how society can push people to commit suicide with its many rules that oppress us as people and the freedom we have in how we can act or conduct ourselves. Such societal pressures cause people to take the easy way out, by escaping their problems. “Because it’s easier, because [you] don’t / [have] to think” (Halperin 2-3) such escapes are caused. Not all escapes caused by societies pressures end in death, but it is one effect of such escapes. Another effect of societies pressure or rules can be seen in how Ma is looked at as odd when she continues to breastfeed Jack at the age of five and when Jack is scolded for touching his cousin’s private parts.