In the late 1800s, as well as the early 1900s, women felt discriminated against by men and society in general. Men generally held discriminatory and stereotypical views about women. Women had no control over themselves and were perceived as nothing more than property to men. They were expected to live up to the perfect image that society had created by trying to fulfill their husbands' desires. Even though many women felt dissatisfied with their lives, they didn't say it out in the open. However, in 1899, Kate Chopin wrote The Awakening, which showed women that they were not alone. This novel showed the discriminatory views and treatment towards women. It also distinctly indicates the dissatisfaction that women felt in their lives. Due to the roles that society has assigned to them, women are unable to seek and satisfy their psychological and sexual urges. In The Awakening, Chopin uses Edna Pontellier to demonstrate that women do not want to be limited by the roles that society has assigned to them. Because of the time she lived in, Edna felt oppressed just because she was a woman. Being a married woman and a mother made her feel even more connected. Looking at the relationship between Edna and her husband Leonce, we see that men treated women as if they were nothing more than possessions or property. They had no respect for their wives, mothers or even their daughters as they constantly treated them like maids who were there to answer their every call. Edna's father also thinks that his daughter is the property of her husband. We see this when he says "You are too indulgent, far too indulgent, Leonce. Authority, coercion are what is needed. Aiming well and hard; the only way to manage a wife" (Chopin 663). This is her father telling her husband that he needs to be harder on her. Chopin here clearly shows the inequality of women. Nowadays, you would never find a father telling his son-in-law to be tougher on his daughter. This was something Edna would not accept. Chopin astutely adds that it was the same treatment by his father that killed his mother. “The colonel perhaps did not realize that he had forced his own wife to bury her in the grave” (Chopin 663). "She, out of habit, would yield to his desire; not with any sense of submission or obedience to his irresistible desires, but without thinking about it. ..... middle of the sheet ...... furthermore, Chopin shows the effect that society can have on a woman While some may be able to handle the pressure, others, like Edna, cannot "Consequently, this end diminishes Edna's stature and necessarily reduces the significance of her rebellion" (Conn 165 ) Although her suicide defeated the purpose of her awakening, which was to be free, Edna still managed to demonstrate that women do not want to be limited by the roles that society has assigned to them. Bibliography Chopin, Kate "The Awakening: Thinking, Reading, and Writing Critically 2nd Ed. Sylvan Barnet et al 607-699. Aull Ph.D., Felice. "Kate Chopin: The awakening of literature, the arts and medicine". 34th ed. (April 1999). Online. New York University. Internet. April 10, 1999. Available: http://endeavour.med.nyu.edu/lit-med/lit-med-db/topview.htmlBender, Brent. "The Teeth of Desire: Awakening and the Origin of Man." American literature. September 1991 (459-474). Conn, Peter. The Divided Mind: Ideology and Imagination in America, 1898-1917 (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Pr., 1983), pp.. 165, 167.