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, Chopin wants to show her critique towards Victorian Morality. Edna Pontellier is the main character who has the role to criticize Victorian Morality. Edna as a controversial character struggles against the rule of society in being mother woman in the Victorian Era. She does not take care of her children and husband. During the time, she flirts to other guy named Robert, and shows her attention to him and rejects doing good behavior in her family. In the end, Edna Pontillier faces many obstacles and her life becomes complicated. 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. The library research is used to collect data and information which are relevant to the topic discussion. It concerns with material and information which are taken from many books, dictionaries, and references to support the analysis. The data from internet are also used to complete the data to make the analysis accurate.