Awakening Vs Greenleaf Essay Research Paper — страница 3

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upon an Omega point where she finds a higher level of understanding of life. As "Greenleaf" begins, the menacing bull has already begun to eat away everything that Mrs. May had been up to that point. The bull?s chewing away at the plants outside of Mrs. May?s window awakens her. She closes the window fearing that the bull will charge her. Mrs. May sees the bull potentially eating everything that is outside, then continuing to her house, and finally eating both her sons and her. The bull, taken as a Christ figure, is a notion of the supernatural that Mrs. May attempts to hide from. At first, she orders that the bull be caged up and placed aside where it could not do any harm to her or her property. She tries to "cage up" the supernatural being that could lead

her to a meaningful life. To imprison something that is above her, more powerful than her, is impossible so she orders the bull be killed. Mr. Greenleaf, a man who already has an understanding of the supernatural is hesitant to try to kill that which is immortal. As the bull becomes to close to run from any longer, Mrs. May is able to find a certain meaning or peace with life. Edna Pontellier and Mrs. May finally reach a point in which they form a certain understanding of themselves as individuals and an actual importance in the notion of the other. Both women reach this Omega Point of living through their own deaths. At the end of the novel The Awakening, Edna Pontellier comes to a point in which she must make certain life choices. Her biogenese process has formed her into a

truly authentic, individual person. Edna was able to take the artistic, physical, sexual and romantic freedom she had always had the right to have. Realizing, though, that moving out of her husband?s house and having relationships with other men would make her a pariah in this late nineteenth century Creole society. The only connection she had to her former life was her children. Edna realized that her emergence as a free individual had already taken and would continue to take a great toll on her loved children. However, "she would give up the unessential, but she would never sacrifice herself for her children" (Chopin 188). In a dramatic closing scene, Edna, stripped naked, takes her own life by swimming out to see until she loses all energy. This scene shows a certain

selflessness and deep love for her children by giving up her physical life. However, Edna does not need to compromise the unique, free human being that she has become. The final stages of Mrs. May?s biogenese and then noogenese occur with a final charge from the Christ-bull. As the bull rushes towards her being, Mrs. May "remained perfectly still, not in fright, but in a freezing unbelief" (O?Connor 306). Mrs. May stayed fearless for the bull approached towards their final embrace at "a gay almost rocking gait as if he were overjoyed to find her again" (O?Connor 305). She has her first true encounter with the supernatural and finds a new elevated life through her death. Though she does not openly show any sort of repentance for the way in which she lived her

life, for the first time in her life, Mrs. May realized the notion of the other, specifically a supernatural other. Though she might not have changed much if she survived, the important aspect of this encounter is that she can only find true, peaceful life fulfillment through the supernatural. Through their deaths, and not until their deaths, Edna Pontellier and Mrs. May experience an individualism that is not self-centered, but unique while still holding on to the idea of love of others. Edna finds love through her children and Mrs. May finds love through the supernatural. 333