The importance of the setting in The AwakeningThe setting is a key element of Chopin's novel, The Awakening For the main character of the novel, Edna Pontellier, the house is not home. Edna was not herself when she was locked behind the walls of the Pontellier Hotel. Instead, she was a whole different person – someone she would like to forget. Likewise, Edna takes on a different identity in her vacation spot in Grand Isle, in her independent home in New Orleans, and in almost every other environment she inhabits. In fact, Edna seems to drift from one setting to another in the novel, never really finding her true personality - until the end of the novel. Chopin seems very concerned about this question throughout his story. On a broader scale, the author seems to delve even deeper into the essence of the female experience: do women in general have a place in the world, and is a woman's life a tedious quest to find this place? The Awakening wrestles with this question, elevating it to multiple levels of complexity. Edna finds liberation and happiness in various places throughout the novel, but this is almost immediately countered by unhappiness and misery. Even at the end, the reader is still left wondering if Edna has truly found a setting in which she can finally be herself. Many readers would say Edna found that niche at her beachfront vacation home in Grand Isle. For Edna, the sea is a vast expanse of opportunity and liberation from the restrictive mundane world of the French Quarter of New Orleans. Chopin's sumptuous descriptions of the sea give us insight into its powerful effect on Edna: The voice of the sea is seductive; never ceasing, while...... middle of paper ......e Awakening. " 1899. The Complete Works of Kate Chopin. Ed. Per Seyersted. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 1969. 881-1000. Delbanco, Andrew. “The Half-Life of Edna Pontellier.” New Essays on Awakening Ed . Wendy Martin. Cambridge UP, 1988. Gilmore, Michael T. “Revolt against nature: problematic modernism” Martin 59-84. Giorcelli, Cristina. “The Wisdom of Edna: A Transitional and Numinous Fusion.” Martin 109-39. Martin, Wendy, ed. New essays on awakening. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1988. Papke, Mary E. On the Brink: The Social Fiction of Kate Chopin and Edith Wharton, CT: Greenwood, 1990. Seyersted, Per Kate Chopin: A Critical Biography: Louisiana State UP, 1969 .Showalter, Elaine. "Tradition and feminine talent: awakening as a solitary book Martin." 33-55.