In the article I chose to read, author Hugh J. Dawson writes about how Edna Pontellier’s character is the number one reason as to why people do not enjoy this amazing piece of literature.
Dawson first states how Edna isn’t following Creole society and that hurts her tremendously. The expectation isn’t something that she wants to surround her life with, so she decides to do her “own thing”. Doing whatever you want when you are a female during that time period, usually doesn’t happen. So Dawson uses the metaphor that she is “swimming away from society”, into her death. Also, Dawson explains how many things in this novella are irrelevant. Chopin would have had a much better piece of writing if it wasn’t so fluffed up. Many characters, scenes, and lines are extremely useless. The reader could be spending a lot more time getting insight to important things that are taking place, instead of unnecessary and useless information. Dawson is very disappointed with how Chopin chose to write this entire novella. He claims it is very amateur and words that are used are particularly “adolescent”. Dawson mentions in the article about how Edna does things that suits her at the moment. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this section because of the fact that we talked about this topic is one of the class Socratic Seminars.it is explained that this thought is the only one going through her mind. Readers get frustrated with Edna because of how selfish she is, and how she goes away and finds a romantic substitute instead of pursuing the right man, or even taking care of her children. She was extremely unwilling to fulfill her duties as a mother, and she came and went when she wanted to. She was someone who only thought of herself, and this is what led me to be extremely agitated with Edna’s character.
The argument in this article was presented amazingly. Not only did I nod my head in agreement with this article, but I think that everyone can take little bits and pieces and apply it to their daily life. We read about Edna, and the suffering others do just because of her rotten and immature personality. I believe that others who read this will take a second glance of how they project themselves, and some could even try to minimize the horrible traits one could possess.
