Kate Chopin's Awakening is perhaps so titled because of what Kate hopes to accomplish by writing this controversial novel, an awakening for her readers to the realities of gilded society. The author Kate is a woman who lives in a Victorian society that oppresses her and expects so much from her and as a result led Kate Chopin to write a fictional tale that opposes and reflects her life and society. The Awakening is a form of artistic protest that highlights the incorrect expectations of Victorian women as well as expressing what it means for an individual to oppose the norm. In the period of the elegant Victorian era the barometers on upper class society were very limited especially to those of the caliber of a woman. Kate Chopin does an exceptional job of making these female duties evident. For example, in Chapter III, Mr. Pontellier exclaims, "If it wasn't the mother's job to care for her children, whose job would it be?" (7). This passage simply states that a woman is expected to care for children, but Kate also includes an underlying meaning in this wh...