To Read & To Write

I don't think Kate Chopin's intention with her novel, The Awakening, published in 1899, was to shock or entertain. Both reactions indeed took over the masses when the book was published. But Chopin, I believe, meant to teach, meant to illustrate an example. I also do not think that Chopin's main character, Mrs. Edna Pontillier, was one to entertain or one who wanted to. However, Mrs. Pontillier did entertain by way of beginning to perform and act out her life for herself, and herself alone. Her witnesses and acquaintances looked on with curiosity and concern, and love.  Put simply, The Awakening is a novel exploring societal values regarding women during the turn of the 19th century (1899). The lush backdrop of the Grand Isle in Louisiana only compounds the emotional turmoil the protagonist, Mrs. Edna Pontillier, finds herself coping with one oppressive summer. As a married woman with children, Mrs. Pontillier finds it difficult to express the psychological changes...

“If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.” – Henry David Thoreau As it turns out, Henry David Thoreau, considered by many to be a quintessential American writer, is not as quaint as I may have originally believed. My initial impression of Thoreau was just that – an initial impression - which did not keep me from reading one of his most famous works, “Walden”, even when I came across his more personally disagreeable ideals. The best places to go are places where one does not have to purchase any new clothes, he writes, or the idea that one should maximize (if you will) the concept of minimalism itself. I love clothes as a form of expression as do I love objects (particularly related to artistry), so his ideas seemed *quaint* to me. However, as I started to really contemplate Thoreau’s “Walden”, it became clear that Thoreau actually set a great example in that he came at the world, and the peop...