The Awakening Essay Prompts:
In Kate Chopin’s The Awakening (1899), protagonist Edna Pontellier is said to possess “That outward existence which conforms, the inward life that questions.” Write an essay in which you analyze how this tension between outward conformity and inward questioning contributes to the meaning of the work. Avoid mere plot summary.
Morally ambiguous characters — characters whose behavior discourages readers from identifying them as purely evil or purely good — are at the heart of many works of literature. Write an essay in which you explain how characters in the novel can be viewed as morally ambiguous and why their moral ambiguity is significant to the work as a whole. Avoid mere plot summary.
The eighteenth-century British novelist Laurence Sterne wrote, “No body, but he who has felt it, can conceive what a plaguing thing it is to have a man’s mind torn asunder by two projects of equal strength, both obstinately pulling in a contrary direction at the same time.” In a well-organized essay, explain the conflicting forces in Edna’s life and explain how this conflict illuminates the meaning of the work as a whole.