English Literature

It is an undeniable fact that the society where each person lives has its own rules and taboos that each individual must abide by. This fact is true in all civilized societies where the transactions and dealings of each and every individual is governed not by their own individual precepts and emotions but by the laws provided by society. The Awakening by Kate Chopin and Summer by Edith Wharton are two different novels that expose in a provocative approach the powerful ways in which women of society struggles to live a life that is absolutely in divergence with what society considers as acceptable and in accord with its tenets. The Awakening tells the story of Edna Pontellier and the changes that occur in her thinking and lifestyle as a result of a summer romance (www.sparknotes.com). Summer on the other hand, speaks of an account of a young woman named Charity Royall who is completely inexperienced when it comes to men and her discernment of her sexual desire ( HYPERLINK httpwww.bookrags.com www.bookrags.com). The central characters of these novels have come up with a resolution to challenge society, with its rules and taboos. Society, however, have proven to be austere which contributed to the unfortunate failure of these protagonists on their quest to attain autonomy.

Body
The Awakening begins in a setting where Edna Pontellier lives in a kind of semi-conscious state. Although she is contented with her marriage to her husband Lonce, she is oblivious of her own feelings and ambitions. Edna has always been passionate who fell in love with a cavalry officer during her youthful years, captivated with a visitor in nearby plantation in her teens, and crazed with a tragedian as an adolescent woman. But she saw her marriage to Lonce as the end of her life of passion and the beginning of a life of responsibility. Although she expected her dreams of romance to disappear along with her youth, her fantasies and yearnings only remain latent, re-emerging on Grand Isle in the form of her passion for Robert Lebrun. The people Edna meets and the experiences she has on Grand Isle awaken desires and urges for music, sexual satisfaction, art, and freedom that she can no longer bear to keep hidden. Just like a kid, the protagonist had started to have a new standpoint of the surroundings around her. Edna fails to comply with the conduct required by society of her as a wife and as a mother and does not take into account the harmful consequences of her unconventional manners. She begins to entertain the notion of having a traitorous relationship with Robert Lebrun and thinks of nothing but herself which was displayed when she escapes her responsibilities as a mother and abandoned her children in the custody of their grandmother without thinking twice about the matter. Robert, nevertheless, abandons Edna for, unlike Edna, he does not possess enough boldness to challenge the standards of society. Edna aspires for liberty but such aspiration more often than not reveals her self-centeredness(www.sparknotes.com).

Summer, on the other hand, concentrates on the sexual awakening of a young lady named Charity Royall. The central character of this novel is born in a mountain environment in Berkshire and spends her growing-up years in the neighboring rural community of North Dormer where there exists further civilization. Charity aspires to break loose from the oppressive pressures of her life consisting of a puzzling mountain clan she is not familiar with but who cast an omnimous shadow over her and the custodian who accompanied her down from the mount who desires to have her as his wife. She works as a part-time employee in a grimy local library where guests scarcely appears and she regards such a job as something like a dead-end, a prisonuntil an attractive young architect, Lucious Harney walks through its doors(www,curtainup.com). Harney is the first man Charity feels an interest in, and as she spends time with him, her feelings change and develop. But disparate from the other women of the social order, the central character of this novel does not dream of a cozy cottage or domestic life of a wife and mother. Her desire is for sexual fulfillment( HYPERLINK httpwww.bookrags.com www.bookrags.com). Charity and Harney engages in a sexual romance. A promise of marriage is given by Harney to Charity, but he deserts the place and goes with another woman named Annabel Balch, a young woman who stands as the ideal type of womanhood to which Charity aspires ( HYPERLINK httpwww.bookrags.com www.bookrags.com). Charity then decides to disregard her feelings for Harney for she is aware that two persons from different classes of society can never achieve togetherness in love. Harney is a gentleman of the upper class whereas Charity is a lady belonging to the lower class. In connection with this painful realization, Charity bewails and is appropriately manifested in these words by the author which states, If ever she looked ahead, she felt instinctively that the gulf between them was too deep, and that the bridge their passion had flung across it was as insubstantial as a rainbow.(Wharton 71). Charity then marries Mr. Royall for she bears the child of Harney and she yearns to grant a bright future for her child.

Conclusion
Autonomy or self-government is characterized by the capacity of a person to attain bliss or happiness and contentment within the confines of the world within her and society at large.This bliss and contentment cannot be said to be achieved if the members of the world within a person such as herself and her family, suffers the consequences of her unconventional acts. Edna Pontellier on no account accomplish this self-government for she made herself and her kinfolk bear a detrimental pain. Correspondingly, Charity Royall never achieved autonomy for by reason of her clamorous and ecstatic affirmation of the joy of sexual love no matter what it costs, she ended up being depressed and desolate(books.simonandschuster.com).