2009 Upper School Thesis Project

Katie Mansfield: Self-Discovery in 20^th Century Feminist Literature

Chapter I: Introduction

One week on the way to church, my little brother told my family a joke that he had heard when he was at school.  Judging by his tone, he had found this joke amusing and deemed it appropriate to tell the entire family.  Upon hearing it, I thought otherwise.  Though I knew my brother and was, therefore, aware that it would in some way be inappropriate, I proceeded to open my ears to what he had to say.  He said to us, “Why did the woman cross the road?”  We had no response.  He finished his joke in saying, “It doesn’t matter.  Why was she out of the kitchen in the first place?”  Yes, my own brother had said this.  My own father was quick to burst into laughter.  “That’s a good one, son!” he exclaimed.  “Nice, Dad, way to encourage your son with his attempts to dishonor the female gender,” I thought to myself.   My mother then gave a small, nervous giggle.  I was in no way amused.  Is this really the way that the children of our nation, and even of our world, are being conditioned to think?

Let us backtrack a moment to the setting at which my brother saw fit to tell the joke in the first place.  We just so happened to be on the way to church, on the way to worship the Lord for creating us equal and beautiful children.  In the Bible, Galations 3:28 states, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galations 3:28).  The key principle is equality.  Pope Benedict XVI said, “We must recognize, affirm and defend the equal dignity of man and woman:  they are both persons, utterly unique among all the living beings found in the world" (Pope Affirms Equal Dignity of Men and Women par. 4).  Is the word ironic running through your mind yet?  Here we are, as a family, going to church where it is said time and time again that men and women are equal children in the eyes of God, and my little brother apparently considers it the prime time to take on the role of a misogynist.  However, it would be unfair of me to place the blame of this completely on him.  He is a teenage boy, and his mind is everyday shaped in this way and that.  Neither can I blame my father for applauding my brother’s words.  Society has molded their minds, along with the minds of others, to view women in this somewhat degrading light.  Though this scene played out with neither my brother nor my father intending to attack women personally, they had unconsciously done so.  They had done so in a fashion that is typically acceptable in our society today.  American author William Safire said, “The right to do something does not mean that doing it is right” (ThinkExist.com).  Though jokes like these and similar stories are seen in everyday life, nobody has the right to view women as inferior.  These same feelings are expressed in various works of feminine literature throughout the twentieth century.

In our world today, women are restricted by social boundaries that set limitations within the female gender.  However, women are working toward liberation.  Anywhere you look, women are making a stand.  Women have come a long way in a very short time.  They can be seen in politics, businesses, movies, television, music, or anywhere else that would have formerly been dominated by the male gender.  They have not landed this new life without a struggle.  The battle of the woman is far from being won, but it has surely begun.  Clare Booth Luce, one of the first women to win a seat in Congress in 1942, is quoted for saying, “Because I am a woman, I must make unusual efforts to succeed.  If I fail, no one will say, ‘She doesn't have what it takes.’  They will say, ‘Women don't have what it takes’” (ThinkExist.com).  In saying this, Luce exerted her opinion that the actions of every woman count toward the result of equality.  Those who do not fight for the removal of the restrictions placed upon them could bring the group down, but those women who rise to the occasion will enable other women to transcend traditional limitations.  If women keep up their invariable determination to press on for equality, surely better days will be on their horizon line.

The persistency of necessary equality is pressed upon the world from all aspects of life.  This is clearly seen in the political world.  Susan B. Anthony voiced her opinion in her speech On Women’s Right to Vote by saying, “It was we, the people; not we, the white male citizens; nor yet we, the male citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed the Union.... Men, their rights and nothing more; women, their rights and nothing less.” (par. 3).  Women have gone from near invisibility in the political scene to attaining major roles in society.  In September of 2008, the PBS television station discussed political positions of women around the world in a segment on women, power and politics:

President Michelle Bachelet of Chile is the first woman leader in Latin America who did not have a husband precede her as President, and former New Hampshire Governor Jeanne Shaheen is now in a tight race for a seat in the U.S. Senate.  We also travel to Rwanda, where, 14 years after a horrific massacre left nearly one million people dead, women make up nearly half of parliament.  (Women, Power and Politics par. 2)

Clearly women are making a way for themselves in our world.  Clearly they are becoming more involved, more aware, and more aggressive in action.  Geraldine Ferraro, the first woman to be nominated for Vice-President of the United States, once said, “We've chosen the path to equality, don't let them turn us around” (womenshistory.com).  She realized the path that women had forged for themselves, and because of women like her, many other women were seeing a clear path and beginning their journey into the world where one may be free from those constraints which have been so tightly tied upon the minds of women for so long.  Women are making a name from themselves, quickly and restlessly. 

Now, I ask that you look past religion, past politics, and past the formal means of integrating the minds of the people with beliefs of equality or inequality.  We turn our heads to the sources that enable us reach the masses.  The dominant form of sharing beliefs and views, it would seem, would appear on television, through songs, and even in movies.  Movies known as “chick flicks” dominate the movie market.  It seems that every few movies that come out are geared towards the entertainment of a woman.  Chick flick films such as Steel Magnolias and Pretty Woman have made actresses such as Julia Roberts famous: a woman entertaining other women and rising to the top.  Instances such as this now happen in our world today because of our new willingness to accept the working woman into our society.  On television, there are many channels dedicated solely to the entertainment of women.  Television stations such as Oxygen and Lifetime are geared toward the lives, roles, and beliefs of women.  In the music industry, women are just as dominant as men.  There are many talented women making names for themselves through expressing their beliefs in their singing and songwriting.  Women are placing themselves above old limitations and exceeding boundaries never thought possible.  Every aspect of life now seems to be unfolding to a world of near equality.  Though far away, the result of parallel constraints on women and men signifying the end of women’s struggles is worth the fight.

Not only has the journey of woman been told through the means thus far discussed; the journey has been most thoroughly and magnificently laid out in feminist literature of the twentieth century.  In my research on the fight of women in a world of oppression, I will analyze Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, and Virginia Woolf’s Orlando.  In each of these pieces of literature, the woman protagonist is faced with similar restrictions still placed on women today, as well as those that women will undoubtedly have to battle with in the future.  These women do not merely sit back and accept the fate that, as women, they were born with.  Instead, they face their constraints head on.  Louisa May Alcott is quoted for saying, “Far away there in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them, and try to follow where they lead” (womenshistory.com).  All of the characters I will examine are able to catch a view of their highest aspirations.  They forge through struggles placed upon them, and they reach for transformation.  These women find acceptance in themselves only when they have grasped their individuality.  With a long journey in front of them, they proceed ahead until they can feel their aspirations within reaching distance.

Chapter II: Constraints

A constraint is “the state of being checked, restricted, or compelled to avoid or perform some action” or “a repression of one's own feelings, behavior, or actions” (Merriam-Webster Dictionary).  One particular case of extreme constraints is those placed upon women.  Bound by constraints, women must overcome the original topic under which they are labeled.  We, as a society, have always placed certain expectations upon women.  With the association of the female role, we tie together the binds of marriage, and then motherhood.  We emphasize the woman’s role in the family life and acknowledge the traditional way in which the family should be run.  A woman is to stay where she belongs, and accordingly, a man will do the same.  However, what will happen if a female desires to do more than just sit back and enjoy the ride?  When a woman realizes that she is just as capable as a male, how will society react, and will this have an affect that will help lead to her self liberation?

In The Awakening, Edna Pontellier is scrutinized and looked down upon because in her quest for identity, she seems to give up on her family.  Like Edna, Janie Crawford in Their Eyes Were Watching God leaves behind the family life that was not meant for her in order to find herself on her own terms.  Janie and Edna both realize the marriages in which they find themselves are not where they want to be.  They are tied down to lives and marriages which are only suppressing them.  In order to free themselves, it is apparent that leaving that life behind and forging their own way is the necessary option to take in order to attain freedom.

Edna places her marriage to Leonce in the back of her mind when pushing herself toward freedom.  She pushes thoughts of her children even further back into her mind.  Though she does love them, it seems as though Edna rarely even acknowledges their existence: 

She was fond of her children in an uneven, impulsive way.  She would sometimes gather them passionately to her heart; she would sometimes forget them.  The year before they had spent part of the summer with their grandmother Pontellier in Iberville.  Feeling secure regarding their happiness and welfare, she did not miss them except with an occasional intense longing.  Their absence was a sort of relief, though she did not admit this, even to herself.  It seemed to free her of a responsibility which she had blindly assumed and for which Fate had not fitted her.  (Chopin 33)

The problem that presents itself to us in Edna’s actions is that we have come to believe that a woman’s marriage and children are supposed to be a treasure to her.  They are not just any treasure either, but her most worthy and valuable one.  The marriage and family is now placed above the individual.  Marriage is brought about by a sense of love, and sometimes even for the sense economic stability it can create.  When a woman disregards these benefits and seeks to please herself instead of others, all views of her are cast downward.  According to societal beliefs, if women are not for marriage and motherhood, then what is a woman’s role?  It is certainly not for her own pleasure in the same way as a man is permitted to do.  As Edna discovers more and more about herself and delves deeper into the unknown and untouched depths of her soul, an image is cast outward to society that she has given up on her womanly roles.  Others cannot help but to look at Edna as becoming ill.  After all, there has to be some kind of explanation for such a behavior that Edna had taken on.  Mr. Pontellier searches for that explination: 

It sometimes entered Mr. Pontellier's mind to wonder if his wife were not growing a little unbalanced mentally.  He could see plainly that she was not herself.  That is, he could not see that she was becoming herself and daily casting aside that fictitious self which we would assume like a garment with which to appear before the world. (75)

Through the eyes of Leonce, Edna’s new ways of thinking are socially unacceptable.  Leonce even goes on to seek advice from a doctor, believing that the sudden desire for independence in his wife must be caused by some type of illness.  He, as a man, is just not able to accept that a woman he is able to control for so many years is now desiring, or even capable of, independent thoughts, beliefs, and actions.

 Even in a society set up for the sole purpose of male supremacy, females can let their hearts lead their minds toward their own paths.  The Handmaid’s Tale takes male domination to the extreme.  The book is written through the eyes of a handmaid, Offred.  A handmaid’s sole purpose for living is to be a vessel for life.  To her society, the life of Offred is worth only that which her ovaries are worth.  Offred explains how she is brainwashed into thinking of sex as a mechanical act, not as an act of love or passion:

I lie down on the braided rug.  You can always practice, said Aunt Lydia.  Several sessions a day, fitted into your daily routine.  Arms at the sides, knees bent, lift the pelvis, roll the backbone down.  Tuck.  Again.  Breathe in to the count of five, hold, expel.  We’d do that in what used to be the Domestic Science room, cleared now of sewing machines and washer-dryers; in unison, lying on the little Japanese mats, a tape playing, Les Sylphides. (Atwood 70)

Her life depends not on her immediate actions but on her ability to have children for men.  No pleasure is capable, laughter is not common, and friendships cannot even be formed.  In Margaret Daniel’s “Feminist Implications of Anti-Leisure in Dystopian Fiction”, she describes the extent to which the handmaids are confined:

Controlled access to leisure reinforces the Handmaids' enslavement.  They are not allowed to read, to play or to even talk freely.  Offred, the protagonist, ponders, ‘How I used to despise such talk.  Now I long for it.  At least it was talk.  An exchange of sorts’ (Atwood 11).  The fitness they receive through regimented exercise and daily walks to market is enforced as a way to keep their reproductive systems functioning and is strictly monitored, as Offred reflects, ‘We aren't allowed to go there except in twos.  This is supposed to be for our protection, though the notion is absurd:  we are well protected already.  The truth is that she is my spy, as I am hers’ (Atwood 19).  Friendships, then, are strictly forbidden, this mandate taken to the extent that the Handmaids can only speak to one another in dictated generalities and are not permitted to look at one another directly.  (par. 15)

  In this setting, males are given all authority, and their wives are of no equality.  The Handmaid’s Tale can be viewed in juxtaposition with the traditional, social expectations placed upon a female, but only because the society bypasses the necessity of marriage to give extra emphasis on the vitality of the motherhood role.  In this world, and our own, for a society to survive, it must have those willing to populate the earth.  Instead of making childbirth a choice for women in the Republic of Gilead, the bearing of children has become a horrific demand.  Atwood creates a world in which woman no longer belongs to herself in any way but to a man.  In this sort of society, one might think that it is impossible for even the strongest-willed female to make it through life and still believe that she should be allowed to have independent views.  Offred, in a state of dissatisfaction with the world, states “I have failed once again to fulfill the expectations of others, which have become my own” (Atwood 73).  With this being said, Offred shows signs of lowering herself to the circumstances in which others in society want her to be.  Offred’s society, the Republic of Gilead, does not want her to have her own expectations to adhere to, just the expectations of those around her, constantly grinding down her spirit.  “Ordinary, said Aunt Lydia, is what you are used to.  This may not seem ordinary to you now, but after a time it will.  It will become ordinary” (33).  There is an expectation presented that even in the worst of environments, a woman should be able to adapt and bear the tortures placed upon her while her soul is on a short leash.  Similar to Offred, Janie Crawford is expected to adapt to a life that is not chosen for her.  Janie’s grandmother decides when Janie should grow up and then urges marriage upon her.  Janie does not desire this, but it is expected by her grandmother that she will learn to cope with her suppression and eventually come to terms with it.  Janie’s grandmother and Offred’s Aunt Lydia are both characters that attempt to convince others to accept their circumstances, even though these are not the lives that they desire for themselves.  Aunt Lydia is not simply convincing Offred and the other handmaids that their society is necessarily correct, but she is erasing their memories of how a different world could possibly let them live in freedom.  She is asserting the fact that with a little getting used to, anything can become ordinary and acceptable. 

After all that suppression, and after a female is taught not to think for herself, it is hard to see how she might be able to go against the grain and find the truth within.  Yet, Offred is able to give us some hope; we have hope that in a completely controlled environment we can break the restraints; we have hope that in the seemingly uninhabitable, we may still flourish as strong women; we are left with hope that through the bad, we might gain the courage we need in order to trust ourselves as women to become stronger in every aspect possible.  Offred tells the readers of her story the following:

I would like to believe this is a story I'm telling.  I need to believe it.  I must believe it.  Those who can believe that such stories are only stories have a better chance.  If it's a story I'm telling, then I have control over the ending.  Then there will be an ending, to the story, and real life will come after it. I can pick up where I left off. (Atwood 39)

Though in the Republic of Gilead, Offred is silenced on the societal level, she is still free to tell her story and speak out on the inside.  This ability to account her story lends her hope.  If she can tell the story, she must be able to control the ending.  She can hope that her story will be heard.  Offred refuses to let society control her inner self.  Offred is able to break free of the expectations and wills of others in the end, as she is able to “step up, into the darkness within; or else the light” (295).

Breaking free is beyond the realm of what a woman is expected to do.  According to society, we all, men and women, must adhere to the rules of the household spheres.  A woman’s life is to be viewed only in the private eye.  A woman is there to cook, clean, and raise the children.  It is the man who is looked upon to work and support the family financially.  He is the one who should represent the family in the public eye.  Bound by all of these limitations set forth by society, a woman is unable to express herself.  Only in cases where a woman breaks free of theses constraints will she find true identity.  Hurston’s Janie Crawford is forced into her first marriage due to reasons of economic stability.  In this marriage, she is treated as if she was some sort of housemaid.  While Janie is in the kitchen cooking breakfast, Logan tells her, “Come help me move dis manure pile befo’ de sun gets hot.  You don’t take a bit of interest in dis place.  ‘Tain’t no use in foolin’ round in dat kitchen all day long.”  Janie replies, “You don’t need mah help out dere, Logan.  Youse in yo’ place and Ah’m in mine.”  Logan then says, “You ain’t got no particular place.  It’s wherever Ah need yuh.  Git uh move on yuh, and dat quick” (Hurston 31).  This episode displays how Logan uses Janie as a maid around the house.  He takes pride in his ability to control her, and gets very angry and violent when Janie speaks out against his will:

Youse mad ‘cause Ah don’t fall down and wash-up dese sixty acres uh ground yuh got.  You ain’t done me no favor by marryin’ me.  And if dat’s what you call yo’self doin’, Ah don’t thank yuh for it.  Youse mad ‘cause Ah’m tellin’ yuh whut you already knowed. (31)

Logan replies to Janie taking up for herself with a threat.  He says to her, “ Ah’ll take holt uh dat ax and come in dere and kill yuh” (31).  Logan is infuriated with the fact that the girl he married is now voicing her opinions and is objecting to his commands.

Looking to find true love, Janie runs off with the very self-dependent visionary, Joe Starks.  However, this too does not work out.  In this marriage, although seen beautiful and precious, she is still only treated as a piece of valuable property.  With Joe Starks, Janie is hardly being treated with more respect than Offred is treated with the Commander.  Janie and Offred can be compared because they both are slaves to their relationships.  Janie chooses her marriage, and Offred is forced into her role as a handmaid, but both become slaves to the men with which they interact. 

Joe Starks makes a very fine distinction between the place of a woman and the place of a man.  When Janie is asked by her community to make a speech, Joe replies for her that “mah wife don't know nothin' 'bout no speech-makin'... Ah never married her for nothin' lak dat. She's uh woman and her place is in de home” (Hurston 40-1).  Starks claims that “Somebody got to think for women and chillun and chickens and cows” (67).  He groups women, not as equals but as part of the lower level of education and society.  Not until her final marriage with Tea Cake does she find true happiness.  According to Mary Wallstonecraft’s A Vindication on the Rights of Woman, “virtue can only flourish amongst equals” (par. 161).  With Tea Cake, Janie is side-by-side in every aspect of their married life. 

In a conversation between Janie and Tea Cake, Tea Cake asks, “So you aims tuh partake wid everything, hunh?”  Janie replies, “Yeah, Tea Cake, don’t keer what it is.”  With this, Tea Cake tells her, “Dat’s all Ah wants tuh know.  From now on you’se mah wife and muh woman and everything else in de world Ah needs” (Hurston 124).  Not only does she find equality in the working field but also in social aspects.  They work together, and they play together.  From the beginning of their relationship, Tea Cake views it acceptable for Janie to participate in things alongside him.  “They played away the evening again.  Everybody was surprised at Janie playing checkers but they liked it” (101).  Tea Cake shows Janie that she is not below or above him, but has the right to take part in all that he is allowed to take part in, even through a simple game of checkers.  Janie is not bound by the thoughts of what a wife should be and is instead given opportunities not formerly presented to her.  Janie says to Tea Cake, “Once upon uh time, Ah never 'spected nothin', Tea Cake, but bein' dead from standin' still and tryin' tuh laugh.  But you come 'long and made somethin' outa me.  So Ah'm thankful fuh anything we come through together” (167).  Through Tea Cake, Janie is enabled to make something of herself.  She is able to control her feelings and is able to become the woman she wants to be.  From her equality with him, she discovers a sense of happiness.

The big transition that takes place is that Janie is no longer property.  We are all too familiar with the phrase, “Honey, you just sit there and look pretty.”  This is exactly what Janie has to do while married to Joe Starks.  Joe tries to keep Janie to himself, not even allowing her to wear her hair down for others to admire.  This is just the problem.  Janie has to be allowed by Joe to live her life.  Just as Offred is under constant surveillance in her society of Gilead, Janie is under surveillance in her world with Joe.  He tries to control her every action.  Both Janie and Offred’s societies attempt to force them into a passive and submissive misery.  However, these women are strong, and do not completely let go of their spirits.  In a world of equality, a woman should not be subject to allowances or limitations from anyone other than herself. 

While Janie is with Tea Cake, she is able to do as she pleases.  This is why their marriage works out.  Janie does not carry out the task of motherhood, and she defies the expectations of the wife.  She simply satisfies her own ambitions and dreams.  After all this, when all is said and done, Janie is finally able to rest contently with her life.  When walking back into her curious town after years of absence, she does not care how she looks or what others might have to think.  Janie’s old friend Pheoby asks her, “where at is all yo’ clothes dat you got to come back here in overhalls” (Hurston 6).  Janie no longer has any reason to please them.  She knows that the way she looks is not all that matters, but instead it is the way that she feels about herself that bears the most importance.  Once she sees that she can please herself, she realizes that this is the only true necessity. 

Feminism is “the belief that men and women should have equal rights” (Webster’s Concise English Dictionary).  However, in our society, gender boundaries do create inequality among the sexes.  In Orlando, gender boundaries are looked upon by one character in both the male and female roles over a lengthy period of time.  Orlando is able to get a glimpse of life from both the perspectives of a woman and of a man.  She experiences the privileges and penalties of each sex.  Half way through Orlando’s life as a male, he becomes a woman.  “But in every other respect, Orlando remained precisely as he had been.  The change of sex, though it altered their future, did nothing whatever to alter their identity” (Woolf 138).  This excerpt clearly portrays the sudden equality that Orlando is able to appreciate in the mind and soul of a man and a woman.  Orlando feels at one with her roles of both man and woman.  “And here it would seem from some ambiguity in her terms that she was censuring both sexes equally, as if she belonged to neither; and indeed, for the time being she seemed to vacillate; she was man; she was woman; she knew the secrets, shared the weaknesses of each” (158).  However, later in her life as a woman, she goes on to notice “her modesty as to her writing, her vanity as to her person, her fears for her safety all seem to hint that what was said about there being no change in Orlando the man and Orlando the woman, was ceasing to be altogether true” (187).  Why the sudden change in views?  The answer lies in society, not within the biological composition. 

Obviously, men and women have physical differences.  Other than that, what makes us so opposite?  It is true that everyone must eat, drink, and sleep in order to survive.  We all hear with our ears, smell with our noses, and see with our eyes.  Is it not true that our hearts beat in the same way and our limbs and joints move in the same way?  What is it that makes us so distinctively different?  The differences of character that we take on are directly due to our society and surroundings.  Upon birth, men are put within one boundary and women in the other.  Those lines, directly asserted by society, are not to be crossed.  “That men cry as frequently and as unreasonably as women, Orlando knew from her one experience as a man; but she was beginning to be aware that women should be shocked when men display emotion in their presence, and so, shocked she was” (Woolf 180).  She learns this behavior by looking at how the rest of society reacts and conforms to that action.  Men do their jobs as men, and women do their jobs as women.  There is only one problem in this perfect situation that we have thrust upon our people:  nothing dealing with real human thoughts, wills, desires, or beliefs could ever be that simple. 

Chapter III: Transformation

Through the eyes of a woman, there are certainly problems that unravel from our seemingly perfect quilt of life.  For many women, it is apparent that somehow all is not right within their lives.  However, very few implement actions to combat these daily struggles placed upon them from the strains of a life of uniformity.  In our society, a woman’s character is based largely on what she has done for others.  How has she helped her husband?  How has she raised her children?  What sacrifices has she made for her family?  With all of these questions presenting themselves constantly, there is hardly ever room for us to take a step back and truly evaluate the woman herself and not just the duties she is expected to carry out for others. 

To have equality in a world of racial, economical, and gender inequality is to walk across a border line that has been set forth by the suppressors of the world.  A woman carrying her mind and body across this boundary into unmarked territory sets forth a precedent of freedom.  However, before a woman is able to cross over, she must recognize the necessity of equality.  Once recognized, this feeling that equality is vital to her existence will become among the most desirable and strongest feelings that she may feel in her lifetime.  Without boundaries, the possibilities are literally endless.

Edna is caught up in a storm of emotions during her stay at Grand Isle.  As Chopin introduces her reader to into the world of Edna Pontellier, she allows one to feel the suppression which Edna feels, so that eventually one may feel and live in the very freedom that Edna gains.  Edna somehow is able to break free from her old shell of a woman and reveal the strong-minded person who has been hiding underneath the entire time, just waiting to be seen, waiting to be heard, waiting to be free.    With this new spirit, she realizes that she was not meant to live underneath the rule of another.  At Grand Isle, when Edna becomes sunburned, Leonce is stated to have “looked at his wife as one looks at a valuable piece of property which has suffered some damage” (Chopin 7).  However, Edna is able to change from a piece of property owned by Leonce Pontellier into a spirit belonging to none other than herself.  “Conditions would some way adjust themselves, she felt; but whatever came, she had resolved never again to belong to another than herself” (106).  Edna obviously realizes that she once was under the dictatorship of the family life.  Her husband ran the household, and she was to appease his wishes and commands with little or no input.  After her senses are awakened, she is a transformed woman.  Once she finds that she could be the judge of her own life, there is no turning back.  She acquires a taste of the freedom for which she so longed and was forever willing to chase that freedom.  “The years that are gone seem like dreams—if one might go on sleeping and dreaming—but to wake up and find—oh! well! Perhaps it is better to wake up after all, even to suffer, rather than to remain a dupe to illusions all one's life” (183). 

Edna realizes that to live for one’s self and to be completely self aware is of far more value than to live under restrictions and false illusions.  Never again would she suffer from inequality.  Never again would she be someone easily pushed around.  Never, ever again would she belong to Leonce, or to anyone for that matter.  Edna changes into a woman ruled completely by her own decisions.  For Edna, that final decision is to release herself into the sea.  While Edna is out in the sea for the last time, experiencing the last moment of her life, “She thought of Leonce and the children.  They were part of her life.  But they need not have thought that they could possess her, body and soul” (Chopin 190).  Her desire in this final action of swimming out into the sea is to liberate herself from all restrictions.

Decisions, either right or wrong, seem to be what determine the freedom or captivity of a female character.  Janie Crawford is plagued by decisions being made for her.  Not until she begins making her own decisions is she able to forge her own destiny.  Janie, like Edna, is viewed as a piece of property.  Janie, because she is beautiful, is a piece of valuable property to be traded and passed around.  Her grandmother passes her on to Logan Killicks in hopes that Janie will enjoy her life through economic stability, but this does not please Janie.  She then decides to take decisions into her own hands and run off with Joe Starks.  Joe, with whom Janie has chosen to fall in love, does not turn out to be the man she wishes he was.  They would be happy together, but he prizes Janie at too valuable of a price.  She becomes his favorite and most valuable piece of property, but nowhere near his equal.  When Joe and the people of Eatonville sit on the porch where Janie works and tell stories, Janie longs to join in:  "Janie loved the conversation and sometimes she thought up good stories on the mule, but Joe had forbidden her to indulge. He didn't want her talking after such trashy people" (Hurston 53-4).  Joe forbids Janie from things which she wills to do. He tries to mold her into what he wants her to be.  At one point in time, he owns Janie, but when she opens her eyes to see that this is not the life she desires to lead, he no longer has the ability to suppress her.  Through Janie’s life journey, she finds out what is important to her.  She shares with her friend this information:  “It’s uh known fact, Pheoby, you got tuh go there tuh know there.  Yo’ papa and yo’ mama and nobody else can’t tell yuh and show yuh.  Two things everybody’s got tuh do fuh theyselves.  They got tuh go tuh God, and they got tuh find out about livin’ fuh theyselves” (192). 

With Janie’s love for Tea Cake, she finds out what she has been missing.  He becomes the key that she has needed to unlock her soul.  He not only treats Janie as an equal human being, but he also reminds Janie of who she was as a child.  Forced to grow up at a young age, Janie is stripped of a vital part of her childhood.  Tea Cake tells Janie, “Don't say you'se ole. You'se uh lil girl baby all de time. God made it so you spent yo' ole age first wid somebody else, and saved up yo' young girl days to spend wid me” (Hurston 172).  Tea Cake’s ability to release Janie’s inner child is just what she needs to boost her into complete ownership of her soul.  Her beliefs and opinions are completely entitled to her, and nobody is going to tell her otherwise.

So, if Janie’s freedom is completely dependent upon her ability to make her own decisions, then how does Offred reclaim her body and mind in a world in which every single decision is made for her in advance, and freedom of thought is not even given as an option?  Offred is a piece of property in every sense possible.  Her body is a vessel and nothing more.  She has been trained for a specific job; nothing more or less is expected of her.  No longer does she own herself, and every sense of self has been squandered from her mind.  “That was one of the things they do. They force you to kill, within yourself” (Atwood 193).  How is Offred able to overcome this obstacle and still find herself?  It is because she is constantly fighting with the fact that she is now property.  She looks at her life story as though it can still be controlled, and with this notion in her mind, she is still able to make her own everyday decisions.  She chooses not to believe that she is completely controlled, and, therefore, she is not.  Offred reasons with herself to find meaning: 

Maybe none of this is about control. Maybe it isn't really about who can own whom, who can do what to whom and get away with it, even as far as death. Maybe it isn't about whom can sit can who has to kneel or stand or lie down, legs spread open. Maybe it's about who can do what to whom and be forgiven for it. Never tell me it amounts to the same thing. (135)

Edna Pontellier, Janie Crawford, and Offred all decide that they are their own women, not meant to be ruled as property under the jurisdiction of a man.  They all decide within themselves that they must change their lives in order to find themselves. 

Virginia Wolf takes a somewhat different overall approach to constrain her protagonist, Orlando.  Orlando, rather than being ruled by a spouse-like figure, appears to be ruled in a greater sense by her emotions in accordance with her society.  In Esther Sanchez-Pardo Gonzalez’s “’What Phantasmagoria the Mind Is’:  Reading Virginia Woolf’s Parody of Gender” he explains the neutrality of Orlando’s being.

If the feminine and the masculine have to coexist, and there is no prevalence of any of the two, one might infer that they either neutralize each other, or that one of the two is foregrounded. It would then be interesting to consider Orlando’s sexuality as governed by his/her gender and thus determine if he respectively behaves as a "man-womanly" and as a "woman-manly," or as a genderless being whose gendered sexuality has been neutralized. (par. 8)

Though it appears as Orlando’s gender would be somewhat neutralized, society takes a hold and divides him into different beings with his switch from man to woman.  Orlando as a woman is led to feel that she must act a certain way in accordance with her social status or her image in society.  Woolf is able to prove to her reader that as a man, Orlando is able to have freedom to do as he pleases.  He goes after women and explores different social realms.  However, when he becomes a woman, he is able to notice the oppression in many aspects of his life.  She is taken as property not only from one man, but from men in general in the society.  In Some Reflections Upon Marriage, English feminist writer, Mary Astell asks the question, “If all men are born free, how is it that all women are born slaves” (par. 18).  Orlando is a free man, and society attempts to make her into a slave of a woman.  “Her modesty as to her writing, her vanity as to her person, her fears for her safety all seem to hint that what was said a short time ago about there being no change in Orlando the man and Orlando the woman, was ceasing to be altogether true” (Woolf 187).  With this being said, it is a fair accusation that a society will attempt to own a woman, and once it has a good grasp on her, it will mold her into the woman she is not.  Edna, Janie, Offred, and Orlando are all at some point victims of their societies.  It is up to each individual woman to claim her individuality; it is up to the individual to set herself free of restrictions.

All of our protagonists experience setbacks.  They all become overwhelmed with the fact that they, as women, are expected to be ruled by men, and by a stereotype living in society.  However, just as they have been pulled into this horrible notion, they also rise above it.  They are able to overcome the owners to which they belonged, and with that, they become strong.  Martina Navratilova is quoted saying, “I think the key is for women not to set any limits” (famousquotesandauthors.com).  This is just what Edna, Janie, Offred, and Orlando do; they rise above their limitations.

Chapter IV: Struggles

For women, obstacles placed before them take on many different forms such as obtaining a new identity, breaking stereotypes, challenging authority, and removing the gap between the treatments of the two sexes. The definition of struggle is “to try hard” or “to fight” (Webster’s Concise English Dictionary).  In order for one to struggle, there must be an obstacle to overcome.   A woman in a struggle against societal stereotypes must take on the brave task of finding her true identity, regardless to what others may think or how they might respond.  Once this identity is found, the next struggle is to carry out the new role in which the woman finds herself.  However different any one woman is, there will always be a struggle for her when she chooses to break free from a prior label and become the woman she knows she has the ability to become.  After finding herself, the struggle turns to one of how to carry out the new role in which she will now dwell.  When breaking the mold of what a woman should be, the problem arises in how to present one’s self in this new light. 

The question that now develops is, after a woman transforms from the property of another to completely belonging to herself, how might she be able to carry on her new role?  How might she be able to utilize this new sense of freedom which she is bringing upon herself?  For Edna Pontellier, the answer is to experiment.  In Jennifer B. Gray’s essay “The Escape of the ‘Sea’:  Ideology and The Awakening”, Gray states that Edna experimented with three different personalities while trying to find who she was in her new freedom:

Edna experiments with these female roles in The Awakening: the "mother-woman", the role sanctioned by dominant patriarchal ideology, and the "artist-woman", an alternative role.  These roles are both "single avenues," in that they are singular expressions of identity, and are embodied, respectively, by Adele Ratignolle and Mademoiselle Reisz.  Edna further experiments with a highly oppositional role, the "free-woman," a role of individuality and sexual freedom.  This role potentially provides a more fulfilling, developed sense of identity for Edna.  However, the role is far too threatening to dominant societal norms for her to sustain it against vehement ideological pressure. (par. 9)

Edna thrusts herself into the life which she has never been permitted to live.  She seems to find that she must fit into the role of the “free-woman,” wherever that path might lead her.  “Mrs. Pontellier was beginning to realize her position in the universe as a human being, and to recognize her relations as an individual to the world within and about her” (Chopin 25).  Edna comes to realize that she is her own person with individual needs and desires, and as far as Edna is concerned, she has the right to fulfill her desires, regardless of what society says or thinks.  Edna begins to question the restraints which are placed on her life.  She rebels against the constraint of motherhood; she rebels against the constraint of marriage, and most of all, she rebels against the constraints of society.  With Edna’s rebellion, her husband takes notice:

Mr. Pontellier had been a rather courteous husband so long as he met a certain tacit submissiveness in his wife.  But her new and unexpected line of conduct completely bewildered him.  It shocked hem.  Then her absolute disregard for her duties as a wife angered him.  When Mr. Pontellier became rude, Edna grew insolent.  She had resolved never to take another step backward. (95)

Through Edna’s actions, she proves that she will never again take this step backward, into her old life of submissiveness.  Now, she will only go forward.  She has set her life into a forward motion where freedom is bound to lie.

A flame of desire that Edna attempts to put out is her desire for Robert Leburn.  However, the flame keeps up through the duration of the novel, and through Edna’s awakening, that flame of desire for Robert grows stronger and stronger.  Through Edna’s rebirth of feelings and emotions, she is able to determine her own fate.  With this, she is able to determine also who she is to care for, and who she is to love, no matter what societal authority says and thinks.  When Robert finally returns to see Edna, she is a completely different woman.  She is now able to defy the social expectations that pin her to a family life and marriage.  When Robert is explaining to Edna the desire for her which he has been fighting against, Edna says to him:

You have been a very, very foolish boy, wasting your time dreaming of impossible things when you speak of Mr. Pontellier setting me free!  I am no longer one of Mr. Pontellier's possessions to dispose of or not.  I give myself where I choose.  If he were to say, ‘Here, Robert, take her and be happy; she is yours,’ I should laugh at you both. (Chopin 178)

In this statement, Edna is letting Robert know, and reassuring herself, that she belongs to nobody other than herself.  She is portraying to Robert the woman she has become and the great transformation which her soul has undertaken.  

In Francesco Pontuale’s “The Awakening':  Struggles Toward L'ecriture Feminine,” Pontuale discusses the sexual awakening Edna feels in the novel:

Edna's developing awareness of her body and sexuality makes her capable of responding to ‘beauty’ that is not confined to men or masculinity and to women or femininity. Despite her dominant heterosexuality, Edna is capable of opening herself up to both sexes, to multiple drives and desires. She is not afraid of bisexuality. (par. 11)

His article goes on to develop the idea that, though Edna is heterosexual in her marriage to Leonce and her obvious feelings of compassion towards other men, she also possesses a certain admiration for Madame Ratignolle.  As an example, Puntuale says that “an exchange between Adele and Edna is described in terms of endearment, without any moralizing, disgust, or fear. Adele's caress is ‘gentle,’ her clasp ‘warm’” (par. 12).  Naturally, Edna is drawn to Adele’s mother-like kindness.  Certain scenes from the novel make evident the closeness that Edna feels to Madame Ratignolle:

Madame Ratignolle laid her hand over that of Mrs. Pontellier, which was near.  Seeing that the hand was not withdraw, she clasped it firmly and warmly.  She even stroked it a little fondly with the other hand, murmuring in an undertone, “Pauvre cherie.”  The action was at first a little confusing to Edna, but she soon lent herself readily to the Creole's gentle caress. (Chopin 30-1)

Not only does Edna show strong emotions when around Madame Ratignolle, but also in the presence of Mademoiselle Reisz.  Pontuale states, “The word ‘stroked’ has erotic connotations which relate to one of the fantasies Edna has while listening to the music of Mademoiselle Reisz” (par. 12).  Edna takes to Mademoiselle Reisz because she is an artist.  Reisz plays the piano beautifully, and this appeals to her senses because Edna is an artist through her painting.  She can look to Reisz for artistic advice, and Reisz is there to support Edna through her passage for freedom from constraints.

Edna shows hints of homosexuality in her interests towards Adele Ratignolle and Mademoiselle Reisz.  She is often characterized as being androgynous.  Often when she is described in her outward appearance, Chopin uses the words thick and strong, both of which usually are masculine characteristics.  “Her eyebrows were a shade darker than her hair.  They were thick and almost horizontal, emphasizing the depth of her eyes.  She was rather handsome than beautiful” (Chopin 9).  With such androgynous characteristics, is it such a surprise that Edna would cast off the societal expectations for a woman and take on freedom that is only offered to a man?  Or should we learn to accept that, especially in Edna’s case, there is little difference between her beliefs and desires and those of the males in her society.

When the struggle presents itself, what might a person do with himself if he has had a complete change in sex?  Orlando has to figure out not only how to cope with new feelings but also with being placed into a new sexual category.  Changes in Orlando vary from change in time period to change in gender.  However, Orlando is able to change sexes through the novel and then stay consistent with identity.  In short, Orlando can experience different feelings in different centuries and then keep a continuous spirit.  Though some emotions do change when he makes the change from male to female, Orlando stays consistent in his views and opinions.  He is still the same old Orlando, only with different societal expectations once he switches over to the feminine side.  Once Orlando changes to a woman, she is ready to find her new place in society.  Edna Pontellier, Janie Crawford, and Orlando all are in search of a new place in society that is much unlike the one that they have become used to.  Edna finds her role in society without her children or husband, but as a free woman.  Janie finds her new role in society with her beloved Tea Cake.  Orlando finds her role once she has switched from a man to a woman.  Orlando is willing to attempt to transcend the original definitions of gender.  While a woman, Orlando also realizes the constraints that women have.  She recognizes that men define what women are supposed to be.  In reaction, women have to be that definition.  Orlando’s transformation is a win over social and cultural restraints that women go through.  Woolf presents a character that could go beyond the gender category and present a clearly feminist vision.  Orlando is the embodiment of defiance. 

According to Woolf, appearances are able to emit some effect on Orlando due to how society now perceives her.  “The change of clothes had, some philosophers will say, much to do with it. Vain trifles as they seem, clothes have, they say, more important offices than merely to keep us warm.  They change our view of the world and the world's view of us” (Woolf 187).  Woolf regards gender identity as androgynous.  Androgynous beliefs are that males and females are very similar and share the same qualities.  The difference in them is that they are socialized according to their gender, therefore fully taking on social stereotypes.  “Thus, there is much to support the view that it is clothes that wear us and not we them; we may make them take the mould of arm or breast, but they mould our hearts, our brains, our tongues to their liking” (188).  Aside from the clothes and appearance, Orlando, on the inside, is a mix of male and female genders.  S/he is the ultimate mixture of androgyny, even going so far as to live as two different sexes in one lifetime.  Both Orlando and Edna Pontellier are androgynous characters, even though Orlando’s is taken to the extreme in an actual sex change.  With these changes in sex, Orlando is able to recognize the pros and cons of both sexes and know what it takes to defy the authority of society and have a sort of rebirth.  Orlando now has the power to balance her previous life as a male, and her current life as a woman, in a way that fits her own desires.

Janie Crawford is a very strong willed woman when it comes down to what she wants.  From a young age, Janie struggles with identity.  She lacks identity by way of family lineage or a name of her own.  Janie has a need to be free.  Though she lives for many years under the suppression of her husbands, she at last finds happiness with her last husband, Tea Cake.  Janie passes through various identities before she finds the final freedom for which she has always longed.  With her first marriage to Logan Killicks, Janie is a piece of property.  In her second marriage to Joe Starks, Janie is a piece of property.  In her third marriage to Tea Cake, Janie is at last free.  She is free from restraints; she is free from oppressing opinions; she is free from anyone who wants to take away her sense of self.  When speaking about her relationship with Tea Cake, Janie states, “We been tuhgether round two years.  If you kin see de light at daybreak, you don’t keer if you die at dusk.  It’s so many people never seen de light at all.  Ah wuz fumblin’ round and God opened de door” (Hurston 159).  Tea Cake is behind Janie’s opened door.

How is Janie able to take on this identity, which is so different from that which she was, with such ease?  The reason is that Janie has been this free woman underneath all the suppression the entire time.  “She was a rut in the road.  Plenty of life beneath the surface but it was kept beaten down by the wheels” (Hurston 76).  She always possesses the spirit of the unbound Janie Crawford, only that spirit is for a length of time hidden under the image of what she is expected to be by her other husbands.  With Tea Cake, Janie can at last show her true self.  She defies what is acceptable, carries on a life of freedom, and embarks upon the unknown with Tea Cake.

Janie is always one to question her restraints.  She knows that she should be the judge of her own actions.  Once she sees how good it could be with Tea Cake, she knows that she has an opportunity for true freedom if she runs away with him.  Janie finds delight in every part of Tea Cake.  “She looked him over and got little thrills from every one of his good points” (Hurston 96).  In Eatonville with Joe Starks, she is restrained by not only her husband, but by everyone in the town.  Joe builds her image up on a pedestal, making her seem untouchable and unable to be spoken to as a normal human being.  For Joe, this is what you did with your most valued piece of property.  The one problem with this is that Janie has no desire to be placed in the top of everyone’s opinions.  She wants to be an equal, to be one like everyone else.  She knows in her heart that women are to be equal with men and that because of the views of women and men in society, men expect themselves to be higher than women.  Janie tells the men of Eatonville:

Sometimes God gits familiar wid us womenfolks too and talks His inside business. He told me how surprised y'all is goin' tuh be if you ever find out you don't know half as much 'bout us as you think yo do. It's so easy to make yo'self out God Almighty when you ain't got nothin' tuh strain against but women and chickens. (75)

As Janie states, the men of Eatonville are able to place themselves among the ranks of God only by belittling others. 

Janie Crawford knows that to discover her own identity, she must be with someone who does not try to make her act any differently from how she wants to act.  As singer Janis Joplin said, “Don’t compromise yourself.  You are all you’ve got” (feminist.com).  In order for Janie to find herself, she has to find a situation in which she does not have to compromise herself for others.  She becomes her own person in a situation where she can make her own decisions, own her own feelings, and not be subjugated by a dominant male.  Janie is able to attain liberation through experiences in her relationships:

The many recent critics of Their Eyes have frequently read the novel as a celebration of Janie's ability to free herself from the confinement represented by her first two husbands and, after the death of her third husband, Tea Cake Woods, to attain a new form of cultural power, the ability to shape her own story. (Simmons par. 2)

Society breeds Janie to be a piece of property, and Janie pushes herself through adversity in order to become an unbound woman.  When Janie comes back to her hometown and is talking to her friend Pheoby, she knows that she does not owe her story to anyone.  She tells Pheoby her story because she is her friend, not because she owes it to anyone.  Janie was “full of that oldest human longing – self revelation” (Hurston 7).  With Janie’s new identity, she can do as she wishes and if she wishes, but never again will she be a woman easily molded and claimed under an outside expectation.  Janie overcomes her struggle, fights the good fight, and is rightfully her own woman because of that. 

What if your new identity is the cause of your struggle?  The case for Offred is just this.  In this dystopian novel, Offred is taken from a normal job, a normal family, and a normal life.  She is placed in a life of orderly chaos.  Nothing is the same as before, and she must learn to live completely differently from before, but not in a good way as has been the case for Edna, Orlando, and Janie.  Offred is sentenced to a life of simplicity; she is forced to conform.  Freedom is looked upon differently in The Handmaid’s Tale.  “There is more than one kind of freedom... Freedom to and freedom from.  In the days of anarchy, it was freedom to. Now you are being given freedom from. Don't underrate it” (Atwood 24).  “Freedom to” is the old sense of freedom for Offred.  Back when she lived the normal life, such as the life we as readers know today, Offred was free to live as she pleased.  With her new life, she has a different type of freedom; freedom is now from instead of to.  Why this change?  “Women were not protected then” (24).  Supposedly, this change is brought about for the rights of women.  They are now going to be protected instead of having to live in fear of certain cases such as running at night or opening the door to a stranger.  All of this is, of course, supposed.  In reality, the change is brought about for men.  In Offred’s new world, men are a dominant force, and women are there simply to bear children and work as servants of some form or another.  Somehow, under all this suppression, a somewhat free spirit is still able to live on within Offred.  She always keeps a glimpse of hope close to her heart.  Even a few simple words such as “Nolite te bastardes carborundorum” carved into wood would give Offred some sort of hope.  She is not one to readily give up herself and her innermost identity to a world of conformism.  Offred must take daring measures in hopes to find freedom.  “Whether this is my end or a new beginning I have no way of knowing:  I have given myself over into the hands of strangers, because it can’t be helped” (295).  Offred takes a leap into the darkness, hoping to find the freedom which she so wished to attain.  After all, not having a definite outcome of her destiny in taking a risk is better than living out her life forever as a handmaid in eternal compliance with the rules around her.

Offred is still presented with choices though she lives in a world where she means almost nothing.  Offred defies authority in this new world.  She takes risks and chances that if found out about would lead to her doom.  However, she decides to take a risk one night to leave the house with the Commander.  She also makes the decision to sneak to see Nick in the nighttime.  Somehow, Offred finds a way to go against the strict authority that was placed upon her and find a way to determine her own actions.  Society suspects that she is behaving as a handmaid, but that is not the case.  However, Offred’s somewhat freedom of actions under the cover of nightfall does not give her a spiritual rebirth or new wonderful feelings.  She is still left with the desire to be and do as she pleases.  The problem is that the penalty for a woman like Offred to live a second of her life in this way, if caught, is death.

“Every night when I go to bed I think, In the morning I will wake up in my own house and things will be back the way they were.  It hasn't happened this morning, either” (Atwood 199).  Offred’s hope and the illusion that her desires bring about are constantly defeated by reality.  Again and again, she must wake up to this miserable world.  Never again will she see her family.  So how does one cope with such misfortune? In Offred’s case, she keeps her sense of self, no matter how bad things may get.  Offred has a spirit that will never, ever give up.  She knows that things are not right the way that they are, with her and all women being slaves to a man’s society.  She must keep on pretending to be a changed woman; she is not changed.  Offred has to live with the spirit of her old life stuck in the shell and clothes of the new life of submission.  She does not agree with what is going on around her though she is forced to comply.  Her new role in this society is determined by both biology and society; because she is a born a woman, she is forced to be nothing but a vessel of life.  She is searching for freedom in every corner, and until it is found, her spirit will not be easily squandered.

Edna, Orlando, Janie, and Offred all embark on a quest in their lives that will change their identities.  Every new identity differs from the other, but a common element intertwines their new selves; they have it in them all along.  All of them have the strength and character that is revealed through certain circumstances in their lives.  The free women that they become, or so yearned to become, are at some point in time revealed.  They are able to break stereotypes and defy social expectations.  They are able to defy authority and go against what they view as being unjust.  Most of all, they are able to find in themselves the power to govern their spirits and influence their freedom.  They possess the ability to carry out their lives for themselves.  For these women, a flood of new feelings will bring about their most precious self discovery.

Chapter V: Freedom

Before attaining freedom, one must first be constrained.  To overcome a restraint, one must struggle through a transformation.  For some women, those restraints which they have to overcome are severe; however, in the end, seeing the ultimate reward as one of freedom is enough to push them into a fight for their personal rights.  Jean-Paul Sartre said, “Freedom is what you do with what’s been done to you” (famousquotesandauthors.com).  Looking at freedom in this sense, freedom is a way of reacting.  The choices are presented both to take what is given to you and to fold in the midst of decision, or to go against what is looked on as normality and choose a somewhat different path.  The right to choose is present, and, therefore, the choice of freedom is also at hand.  When reacting with freedom, one has desires.  The ability to do as desired belongs only to the truly free.  One must become free, not only in body but also in mind.  The sense of knowing that one is free is what will bring you a feeling of satisfaction.  For women, these desires can be as simple as personal ownership over both actions and mind.  To make these desires true, a woman must first persevere.  Perseverance over outside expectations gives one control over choices and desires.  With perseverance comes satisfaction.  Satisfaction for the woman who has been suppressed by outside factors comes when she may be able to accept the life she now has.  The life of freedom is one of great desire for a woman who has never gotten a true sense of how great it can be.  In this state of satisfaction, the woman can feel a blissful acceptance for possibly the first time in her life.  Once satisfaction is reached, the complete journey for freedom is obtained.  A woman who is satisfied with herself, in touch with her soul, and at one with her feelings is able to take all necessary chances in order to obtain her desires.  No longer is she a subject of control.  She is free of constraints, and this is the greatest freedom that she can ever experience.

Edna Pontellier has to persevere over the rule of her husband and the consistent hum of societal expectations in her ear.  Edna is certainly a woman of many desires.  She is constantly overwhelmed by her strong emotions and feelings that, according to society, she as a woman is not supposed to be feeling.  Edna gains knowledge of her place in the world:

In short, Mrs. Pontellier was beginning to realize her position in the universe as a human being, and to recognize her relations as an individual to the world within and about her.  This may seem like a ponderous weight of wisdom to descend upon the soul of a young woman of twenty-eight - perhaps more wisdom than the Holy Ghost is usually pleased to vouchsafe to any woman.  But the beginning of things, of a world especially, is necessarily vague, tangled, chaotic, and exceedingly disturbing.  How few of us ever emerge from such beginning!  How many souls perish in its tumult! (Chopin 25)

Edna recognizes her independence, and her quest for fulfillment is underway.  Being the strong woman that she is, Edna is not one to be influenced by these constraints set forth by society.  Once the way that she looks at her life begins to change during her summer stay at Grand Isle, she is set on a course of defiance.  Edna looks in retrospect at her stay at Grand Isle, and what could have possibly brought about transformation of her thoughts:

She let her mind wander back over her stay at Grand Isle; and she tried to discover wherein this summer had been different from any and every other summer of her life. She could only realize that she herself--her present self--was in some way different from the other self. That she was seeing with different eyes and making the acquaintance of new conditions in herself that colored and changed her environment, she did not yet suspect. (67)

Edna, from this point on, will lead herself down a path of self discovery.  Once she leaves Grand Isle, she is a changed woman.  Though her family and friends find it strange that she is acting with such spontaneity, Edna is becoming her own woman through her unlikely actions.

Edna Pontellier desires that which her current circumstances cannot give her.  She lives very comfortably, being a mother of two and the wife of Leonce Pontellier.  She is part of an elite societal group.  However, this is not what she truly wants.  With Edna’s independence, “there was with her a feeling of having descended in the social scale, with a corresponding sense of having risen in the spiritual” (Chopin 156).  Edna desires to be her own woman.  In “The Escape of the ‘Sea’:  Ideology and The Awakening”, Gray states:

Edna is subjected and interpolated by marriage and patriarchy, and succumbs to a placement in the ‘mother-woman’ role. Edna is married to Leonce and bears children but cannot give herself over to them completely. She quietly lives a life of outward conformity, becoming a wife and mother, as she inwardly questions such conformity. (par. 19)

Edna knows that which was not correct for her in her life, and in her life’s path that is to follow she will no longer be a subject of outside factors such as society and her husband.  “He [Mr. Pontellier] could see plainly that she was not herself.  The is, he could not see that she was becoming herself and daily casting aside that fictitious self which we assume like a garment with which to appear before the world” (Chopin 96).  Edna is on the brink of discovery, and nobody is going to hold her back.

Edna’s character is especially emphasized in being a non-traditional woman of the age.  Women are meant to conform to strict codes of womanly conduct.  Edna betrays these codes in order to fulfill her personal desires.  Chopin presents images in the novel that portray the desire that Edna has to break free toward her own self discovery.  Images of flight and the sea are persistent in the novel.  Francesco states in “The Awakening:  Struggles Toward L’ecriture Feminine” that “Chopin's identification of Edna with birds as well as allusions to birds and flying constitutes another link between the protagonist, the narrative and femininity” (par. 21).  When Edna breaks free from the regulations of her husband and those of her society, she decides to move out of her husband’s house.  She wants a place of her own in an attempt to gain the independence for which she so wishes.  Edna refers to her new home as the “pigeon house,” as she would be living in it trying to take the flight of freedom. When talking about the “pigeon house,” Edna says, “I know I shall like it, like the feeling of freedom and independence” (Chopin 133).  Another reference to flight appears when Edna is talking to Alcee Arobin about Mademoiselle Reisz.  Edna expresses the interest she has in a certain occurrence that day while she was visiting with Mademoiselle Reisz.  “Well, for instance, when I left her to-day, she put her arms around me and felt my shoulder blades, to see if my wings were strong, she said, ‘The bird that would soar above the level plain of tradition and prejudice must have strong wings’” (138).  Edna tells Arobin that this act is something that “you don’t notice at the time and you find yourself thinking about it afterward” (138).  Edna must have thought about it, and she must have strengthened her wings because she is willing to break free of all expectations placed upon her.

At first, the sea is something that Edna fears as she is learning to swim at Grand Isle.  However, once she is fully emerged on a swim with her friends one night, Edna feels recklessly attracted to the sea:

A feeling of exultation overtook her, as if some power of significant import had been given her to control the working of her body and her soul.  She grew daring and reckless, overestimating her strength.  She wanted to swim far out, where no woman had swum before. (Chopin 47) 

In Pontuale’s essay he explains:

This experience is also the prelude to a ‘new’ Edna, the woman who, soon after her swimming expedition, will challenge her husband's authority and question the limitations of her role as wife and mother. It is as this new woman that she finds the confidence and strength to rebel against her husband. (par. 19)

The sea presents to Edna new power and freedom.  She wants to feels the overwhelming freedom of the sea sweep over her.  “Intoxicated with her newly conquered power, she swam out alone” (Chopin 48).  This is precisely what Edna does in her own society.  She now knows the feeling of freedom, and once she has tasted the sweetness of its fruits, she will never be able to go back to being a woman worn down by outside expectations.  The sea evokes Edna’s senses and is an image throughout the novel.  In some parts of the novel it is merely setting, yet in others it is the ultimate expansion of freedom.  The sea calls to Edna’s soul.  “The voice of the sea is seductive; never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander for a spell in abysses of solitudes; to lose itself in mazes of inward contemplation” (189).  The sea naturally calls to Edna’s free soul.  It seduces her to swim in its freedom and bask in its never ending expanses.  It is no wonder that in Edna’s last moments of life, she swims as far out as she possibly could into this vast open body of water.  She, as a woman, perseveres over the societal expectations and reaches for her personal desires.  She has reached a feeling of satisfaction and is at ease with her soul: 

Every step which she took toward relieving herself from obligations added to her strength and expansion as an individual. She began to look with her own eyes; to see and to apprehend the deeper undercurrents of life. No longer was she content to ‘feed upon opinion’ when her own soul had invited her. (156) 

Once Edna’s journey of self discovery is complete and she is able to completely let herself loose of any constraints, she is then ready to swim into the eternal freedom of the sea.

 Orlando’s life and outlooks vary somewhat from those of Edna Pontellier.  Edna is restricted by her husband; Orlando is without a spouse for the larger portion of Woolf’s novel.  However, both characters are restricted in a societal way.  Orlando is able to feel the effects of suppression from the view of both male and female sexes.  In Christy L. Burns’ essay “Re-dressing Feminist Identities:  Tensions between Essential and Constructed Selves in Virginia Woolf's ‘Orlando,’” she states:

One is left to ask, much like an echo of Orlando herself, what if anything constitutes Orlando's identity.  Has anything remained essential or even consistent throughout the history?  Various strands, such as memory and her ownership of the estate, might be suggested.  But memory lapses and Orlando travels about.  The one truly persistent aspect that remains with Orlando throughout her life may seem more arbitrary than essential; only her name, “Orlando,” truly remains the same. (par. 42)

Orlando lives through many time periods, and there is no question that certain matters are bound to change, but the change in sex does not essentially bring about the change in Orlando.  Though the change in personality is somewhat subtle at first, considering the fact that his gender changes, he is bound to begin to think and feel somewhat differently as a woman.  This change can be due to many different causes, but the most apparent outside contributor is society.  Only certain views are acceptable from a woman.  “A woman knows very well that, though a wit sends her his poems, praises her judgment, solicits her criticism, and drinks her tea, this by no means signifies that he respects her opinions, admires her understanding, or will refuse, thought the rapier is denied him, to run through the body with his pen” (Woolf 214).  A man will accept her tea, but he will not accept her intelligence. 

Orlando has desires as a woman.  He is suppressed by the realization that he can not do as a woman what he would have been able to do as a man.  Orlando’s true perseverance is shown through her ability as a woman not to be worn down by these new outside factors.  Perhaps it is because she knows better that she does not succumb to the expectations of her life.  Orlando as a woman “need neither fight her ego, nor submit to it; she was of it, yet remained herself” (Woolf 266).  She is to a point in her life where she finds satisfaction with acceptance, and she is able to recognize and carry out her own desires.  Whether her desire is to write, to get married, or to do whatever else she wishes, the possibility is there for her to wish for it, and that is what makes the difference in Orlando’s life. 

“Which is the greater ecstasy?  The man’s or the woman’s?  And are they not perhaps the same?  No, she thought, this is the most delicious” (Woolf 155).  Having said this, it is evident that Orlando manages to find true harmony with her feelings as a woman.  She is the only person who could let herself free.  Society could hold her back, but if she decides to become that which she wants, she could reach all new heights that she could not even reach as a man.  Even after her marriage to Marmaduke Banthrop Shelmerdine, she is not contained.  The woman Orlando has decided to let herself free.  She is willing to take chances, such as those of a woman writer, and to step outside of the realm of conventional womanhood.  In the end, Orlando realizes that she has taken on many identities: 

She called hesitatingly, as if the person she wanted might not be there, ‘Orlando?’  For if there are (at a venture) seventy-six different people are there not – Heaven help us - all having lodgment at one time or another in the human spirit? . . . For everyone can multiply from his own experience the different terms which his different selves have made with him. (308-9)

In the final pages of Woolf’s novel, it is apparent that Orlando learns to cope with her multiple identities that are results of personal experiences.  She has persevered and is now to a point of satisfaction in her life.  For Orlando, her journey of self discovery is then complete. 

For Janie Crawford, freedom means finding her place in this world.  According to Goethe, a writer and philosopher of the romantic age, “None are so hopelessly enslaved as those who falsely believe they are free” (thinkexist.com).  Janie has been given several false senses of freedom during her lifetime.  Her grandmother believes that pushing Janie into an economically stable marriage would, therefore, make her free from restrictions that the poor African American people have had to face for ages.  However, this does not free Janie.  It actually enslaves her more than economic instability could ever do.  In Janice Daniel’s essay “De Understandin' to Go 'Long Wid It':  Realism and Romance in Their Eyes Were Watching God”, she states:

Before she [Janie] can determine her own direction, however, her grandmother--the romance foster parent who raises the waif--becomes an obstacle. Nanny wants to protect Janie, but her own perception of the real world is one which has resulted from oppression and abuse; the only things that can save Janie are money and respectability. (par. 10)

Janie’s grandmother believes that what Logan Killocks can give Janie, such as money and respectability, is worth the sacrifices Janie would have to make.  However, Janie is not one so easily to give up her freedom for another’s dreams.  Janie does not value the material assets that her Nanny desires so much for her. 

Since Janie’s marriage to Logan Killocks is not the romance she has dreamed of, there is bound to be a change of scenery that lay in store for Janie.  When Janie first meets Joe Starks, she introduces herself in saying:

Mah name is Janie Mae Killicks since Ah got married.  Useter be name Janie Mae Crawford.  Mah husband is gone tuh buy a mule fuh me tuh plow.  He left me cuttin’ up seed p’taters.” Joe replies to her, “You behind a plow!  You ain’t got no mo’ business wid uh plow than uh hog is got wid uh holiday!  You ain’t got no business cuttin’ up no seed p’taters neither. (Hurston 29) 

Joe reveals to Janie that she does not have to be the slave of a wife to Logan Killicks.  He shows her that she can change her circumstances, if she so desires.  Daniel points out that with the introduction of Joe Starks in her life “Janie senses for the first time that she has the power to make changes for herself” (par. 12).  The introduction of Joe allows Janie to make the decision to leave or to stay with Logan Killocks.  Janie, showing the first glimpse of freedom to live as she has desired, chose to run away with Joe Starks in hopes of a more perfect life.  However, things are not as she wishes them to be with Starks either.  With Joe Starks, Janie is not free.  She is thought of very highly by him, but she is not equal.  He sets her above the town of Eatonville, yet under him.  Janie finds herself caught in the middle, with nobody there for company.  This makes Janie into a very lonely woman, in a town where she cannot relate.  However, her marriage to Joe is a step toward her freedom and future.  Daniel states that “Joe Starks's exterior motivation and Janie's interior drive combine to propel her toward her ultimate horizon, and her new husband is now the first positive impact on her progress toward fulfillment” (par. 13).  Though Joe might not be the ultimate horizon in Janie’s life, he does serve a purpose in making Janie realize the woman she could be.  Her marriage to Joe lets her know how marriage was not supposed to be in her mind.  She wants an equal.  She does not have any desire to live above or below her spouse.  She merely wants to walk beside him in a peaceful union.

This union is what she finds with her beloved Tea Cake.  Tea Cake manages to sweep Janie off her feet in Eatonville.  Tea Cake shows Janie how a marriage should be communal.  They interact in the same ways with the same people while working in the “muck” of the Everglades.  Janie has opportunities never before presented to her when she is with Tea Cake.  Through Tea Cake, she is able to persevere over the wear and tear that she has to put up with over the years of suppression.  With Tea Cake, she has the ability to do as she desires and feel how she wants to feel and when she wanted to feel.  Complete control over her actions and mind are then granted to Janie Crawford.  Daniel states about Janie’s marriage with Tea Cake that “for the first time, she can explore her humanity in a communal situation, and the members of the community interfere less and less with her quest” (par. 21).  Janie is able to rely less on others and more on her own will.  It is in this type of setting that Janie is able to be in touch with her soul and feelings.  No longer does she need the direction of a man, or her Nanny, or anyone else that has ever told her when and where to do things.  She knows her place in the world, and she is going to dwell in this satisfaction.

Hurston makes clear the difference she sees in men and women’s desires and aspirations from the very beginning of her story.   She knows that men and women both need certain assistance from each other and that they are very different in what they need.  Through helping one another fulfill their needs, they reach a common equality.  Through reaching this equality, they can reach for their dreams:

Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time. That is the life of men. Now, women forget all those things they don't want to remember, and remember everything they don't want to forget. The dream is the truth. Then they act and do things accordingly. (Hurston1)

The action that Janie takes to fulfill her dreams is to find a man with whom she can share an equal relationship.  Janie wants to find a man who will complement her free spirit and run alongside her soul.  Her dream is visualized in the finding of Tea Cake.  She has to go through many struggles and battles to find the one she can be equal to, but once she finds him, they are able to harmonize their spirits with satisfaction.  Janie reaches a point where at last, life is good.  She undoubtedly has the freedom which she has always aspired, and she is able to do with that whatever she may please.  A spiritual journey has been completed for Janie Crawford.  She rises above the constraints of her society, even though she is set under a double pressure of being both female and African American.  Janie goes through her journey with a feeling that nobody can ever take away from her.  She has finally reached the horizon line.

Offred must strive to attain a freedom somewhat different of Edna, Orlando, and Janie.  Offred, and women in general, become victims of a forceful society and governing force.  Theoretically, Offred is no longer able to carry out any desires of her own.  All circumstances in her world are monitored.  When walking to the market, the handmaids are to walk in pairs.  She is under strict watch every second of every day.  Offred feels the pressure that is constantly emitted unto her.  She says, “I want everything back, the way it was.  But there is no point to it, this wanting” (Atwood 122).  So the question at hand is how might Offred be able to persevere in a land where allowances are slim to none and women are only subjects of control? In Margaret Daniels and Heather Bowen’s essay “Feminist Implications of Anti-Leisure in Dystopian Fiction”, the handmaids are summed up in saying:

Atwood's Handmaids, then, are an extreme example of almost complete loss of personal leisure spaces.  They have no choice regarding the treatment of their bodies; no permission to select the individuals with whom they pass time; no control over their lives. (par. 19) 

Offred has a complete loss of choice but must keep her soul alive.  Though she is a handmaid on the outside in her appearance, on the inside she is still bursting with ambitions and desires. 

Offred does find ways to rebel against this society in which she finds herself.  When sneaking off with Nick, she rebels.  In sneaking into the Commander’s office, she rebels.  Offred finds throughout the novel ways to do as she desires.  The catch is that she cannot get caught, or she is doomed.  Therefore, she has to resolve her freedom to free will over her mind more than her actions.  She can do as she pleases with her actions, but has the frightening consequences of death if she is caught.  Her mind, not the governing body or society, frees her to do these things.  As Offred says, “Live in the present, make the most of it, it’s all you’ve got” (Atwood 143).  She has to keep her mind on the present and the task at hand in order to keep sane in the chaotic world in which she lives.  Offred does not reach a freedom as a truly free woman would reach.  Her freedom is in herself.  She has to let herself know that she is the governing body over her mind, and that she should not surrender her spirit to those who are trying to squander her soul.  In recognizing this, Offred sets herself free.  Though her journey of life has not played out completely and it is not said where she may end up, it is known that she has developed inside of herself her own sense of freedom.  She has the right to think and feel as she pleases.  Offred’s freedom lies in her everlasting spirit.  In this, her journey is complete.

Though placed under different constraints, seemingly varying in severity, yet all harshly pressuring each character, Edna, Orlando, Janie, and Offred are able to transform themselves into newly discovered women.  They have not known themselves to be as strong as they discovered they could be.  All of the characters have to go though different struggles to reach their freedom.  They overcome society.  They overcome pressures.  They overcome expectations.  Each and every one of them is able to find herself in a struggle for identity.  When freedom presents itself as obtainable, they grasp it with the strength that has been building up inside of them.  To Edna, the ultimate freedom is found in death.  To Janie, the freedom she desires is found through love.  Orlando finds freedom in being at one with her gender.  Offred finds freedom in the rebellion against authority and the ability to tell her story.  These women rise above the limitations set upon them and mold themselves into women of unsurpassable quality.  Their journey is complete.  Their self discoveries are attained.  In their own ways, they have become free.

 Chapter VI: Conclusion

For a woman, the journey she must take toward freedom is one of trials and tribulations.  However, once she has reached a point in her life where she knows that her journey is complete, her life becomes fulfilled.  No longer will she wonder what is missing, for she has found it.  No longer will she have to search for her identity, for she has found it as well.  Never again must she be willing to succumb to the pressures placed upon her by society, for she has set herself free to live a life of equality

A woman must break through social expectations and disregard gender boundaries.  She must be willing to release her spirit and transform herself.  Her transformation can be attained through first recognizing the feeling which compels her to long for equality, but then she must fight for the individuality for which she now longs.  With this transformation, struggles are sure to come.  These struggles include those of breaking the stereotype and taking on a new identity, found through her quest for self knowing.  She must challenge the authority and surpass restraints.  Limitations are to be done away with, and a woman of freedom is soon to emerge.  In this final sensation of freedom, all the struggles become worthwhile.  To struggle is to grow, and once she has grown into her identity, happiness will soon follow.  This happiness will give her the strength to do as she desires; it gives her the ability to persevere; it gives her satisfaction and acceptance of one’s self.  Lastly, it gives her freedom:  freedom from constraints and freedom from all.  When a woman is free, her journey is complete.

Certainly twentieth century feminist literature has given us great examples of women characters faced with challenges, but who create their own paths in life, rather than adhere to the restraints that are placed upon them by others.  Edna Pontellier, Janie Crawford, Offred, and Orlando all show how different women, placed under different circumstances, but all leading lives of suppression, may rise to the occasion and reveal their true selves to the world.  They all may go on different paths in their lives, but that one path, which they have chosen, does truly belong to them.  From their journies to self discovery and on, nobody will ever be able to restrict their actions, their emotions, or their spirits.  They belong solely to themselves.  Their journey is truly complete.  They are, indeed, free at last.

In conclusion, I think ahead.  I begin to wonder how the world will view women in ten years from now.  When my brother is driving his own son to church, will they make jokes about the social standings of women?  Will my brother’s son be the innocent youth with a mind molded to believe in inequality?  I certainly hope not.  I can analyze and write about where women have been and where they are now, but all that I can do about the future is hope for better days.  If society lends me a hand in this wishful thinking, it can be assured that women will no longer have to dream of freedom.  Freedom will become the reality.

 

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