Posted by Gary Walmer (67.172.168.223) on July 11, 2005 at 7:18:43 p.m.:
In Reply to: Question Two: The Awakening posted by Jeanne Guerin on July 8, 2005 at 8:55:01 a.m.:
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>Discuss The Awakening in terms of The Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments, a required reading linked at the Chopin Links page. Read and Reply to others by by Tuesday at 10 pm
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Thank God for the freedom's my daughters are able to experience in their lives. These freedoms are those, which the Seneca Falls Declaration so righteously addressed. Those voices, which were willing to take a stand to draft this document, were not only pioneers, but they were true heroes. Kate Chopin might not have been a hero, but she was a true pioneer. A woman who was willing to write a book that would stir the minds of those who read it openly.
Mrs. Pontellier was no more a villain of lustful desires than she was a prisoner of cultural indifference toward women. Her willingness to take her life was quite disturbing to me. Yet her plight was one of lost love, and not just social reform. The Declaration of Sentiments voices the rights of all of God's creation to an equal station regardless of sex, and it is this noble venture that Mrs. Pontellier unknowingly represented. Her usurping the normal traditions was not because of a desire to participate in anarchy. What she desired was the same freedoms afforded men of her time. To this same end the Declaration sought similar results.
Gary