i just read The Awakening, by Kate Chopin ..
It's a lovely book. It reminded me a lot of Anna Karenina. So many of Somerset Maughm's books are a bit like that, the stuggle of a soul trying to reach out to something wonderful and glorious and true and ultimate .. but this is the first time I read a woman's attempt at it; Ayn Rand ofcourse, but her's is a different approach ...
It's moving, stirring and beautiful .. especially against a backdrop of society in those days. Love, soft and gentle, or deep and passionate, or tender; that of a baby's ... all love is a chain that binds the soul .. like all things and emotions are ... but love has the potential to lead the way to truth ...
How are marriage, children, society relevent to a woman in the struggle of her soul is a very interesting question ... and how for so many women, the children are the hardest to give up, so to speak. So far I never distinguished between man and woman in the quest for the ultimate .. I still dont know if it is necessary or meaningful. But a woman's opinion on it is interesting. It is a pity that women are always influenced, weather they accept it or deny it, by society so much more deeply than men. Why can we not reject unimportant things as ruthlessly as men can do? Why is social acceptance, or some form of acceptance, so important.
I always thought that feminists are irresponsible, whining women clamouring for rights(or a diluted version of this statement), but the role of women in society is so difficult to define. It is an authority that is lost when claimed, a power that exists and grows as long as it is not asserted.
It is sad that it ends in Edna's death .. unfortunate .. but if society that day had give the encouragement that Chopin richly deserved she could have explored so much more ...
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