A Critique of Victorian Morality Reflected by The Main Character in Kate Chopin’s The Awakening

Abstract

The Awakening is a novel written by Kate Chopin in 1899. In her novel, Kate Chopin wants to show her critique towards Victorian Morality. Edna Pontellier is the main character who has the role to criticize Victorian Morality. Edna Pontellier as a controversial character in the novel struggles against the rule of society and being mother woman in the Victorian Era. This thesis focuses on Edna’s rebellion against the values as the indicator of Chopin’s critique. Edna as the main female character breaks and rebels the conventional values surrounding her. The strongest influential factors that shape and influence Edna’s rebellion are coming from the society, family and friendship. She breaks the conventional values by having free sexual partner, does not take care of her children and does not servesher husband. During the time, she flirts to other guy namedRobert, and shows her attention to him and rejects doing good behavior in her family. Moreover, this novel is interesting to analyze because the story of the novel teaches us many things in life, especially about Victorian Morality. The discussion aims to analyze the Victorian morality working on the main character, Edna Pontillier, by using Moral Approach. It is used to analyze the moral of the main character by rejecting the Victorian Morality in the novel. Furthermore, theory of ethics by Immanuel Kant is used to analyze whether the main character, Edna Pontillier is categorized having good or bad moral. The deductive method is applied to analyze the general matter in the discussion to obtain the specific conclusion. Since this thesis is conducted by analyzing the words, sentences, and narration in the novel, qualitative research is applied. The other events or elements that do not have relation to rebellion against Victoian Morality will not be observed. The author’s motive in creating the novel,The Awakening is also discussed. Chopin wants to show that rigid moral in Victorian Era does not bring peaceful and comfortable for the society. It is actually a time of truly tied women for being mother women at home.