Awakening by Kate Chopin

The Awakening has been called a case study in nineteenth-century feminism. The
concept of self-ownership is one of the novel’s central themes. Self-ownership, also known as
bodily autonomy, was a central tenet of 19 th-century feminism. It was a symbol of a woman’s
right to control her own body and identity. So-called first-wave feminists argued that women
could only achieve freedom by refusing to give up control of their bodies to others, specifically
men. They focused on a wife’s right to refuse sexual relations with her husband in particular.
They claimed that a woman’s service as a wife and mother gave her ownership of her body and,
as a result, the right to refuse to have sex or be impregnated.

The Awakening’s heroine yearns for this kind of bodily autonomy. She is adamant about
gaining control over her own person. Edna fights her husband’s objectification, describing him
as looking at her “as if she were a valuable piece of personal property.” When Robert suggests
that she is “not free” and needs to be “set…free” by her husband in order for them to be
together, she challenges him. Finally, she keeps the promise she made when she first moved
into the pigeon house: she will “never again belong to anyone other than herself.”