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When her father comes to visit her she enjoys his company and her mood completely changes from morbid to lively and eccentric.īut deep down Edna knows that it won’t last so she makes the most of it. This is a reoccurring theme that Edna seems to have two personalities, two different emotions, and even has two different lovers who are not her husband. Edna seems to have “two contradictory impulses which compel her” (Chopin 14). Later on in the novel it is suggested that Edna is bipolar, or has had a problem with living as one person even as a child, “t a very early period she had apprehended instinctively the dual life-that outward existence which conforms, the inward life which questions” (Chopin, 14). Such experiences as the foregoing were not uncommon in her married life” (Chopin, 8). Pontellier, her husband, informs Edna that their son, Raoul, had a fever she began crying after she checked on him and he husband went to sleep.Įdna “could not tell why she was crying. Edna could easily be considered someone with bipolar disorder she gets upset over the little things instead of something huge. (Formally called manic-depressive disorder) (Myers, 659). Having depression results from being bipolar because the bipolar disorder is, “a mood disorder in which the person alternates between hopelessness and lethargy of depression and the overexcited state of mania. We Will Write a Custom Case Study Specificallyįor women of her time it is difficult to live with these conditions because they did not know of these disorders or what to do to correct them.
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In Kate Chopin’s, The Awakening the main character Edna Pontellier struggles to fit in and be a cheerful wife amongst her husband’s friends because she is suffering from depression and bipolar disorder. If the book is read through thoroughly signs of depression and bipolar disorder can be fond in the character’s personality. One novel that shows evidence of the character being mentally unstable is The Awakening by Kate Chopin. It was only a slight understanding of the mental state of people that came about but as the knowledge increased people are constantly looking back on literature to find that the characters’ actions make more sense when bringing to light that they were mentally unstable. Up until the twentieth century no one quite understood what drove people to do such insane things or act in a manner that wasn’t socially acceptable. Throughout literature characters have been seen doing rather peculiar things that reflect the real life actions of people in the world. Mental State: How Stable are the Twentieth Century Characters? How are people measured? People are measured in several different ways: How they look, what they wear, what they eat, who they associate with, but most importantly people are judged by what they do.