Kate Chopin’s The Awakening challenges the traditional image of Victorian
women, who, according Ashley (1982 : 152), had the duty of managing the household,
correcting their children’s behavior and taking care of their husband. But Edna,
the novel’s protagonist, doesn’t feel that home is “a place of rest for the husband
where a woman finds her highest pride in the sweetest humility and the tenderest
self-suppression” (152). She seeks a more authentic dignity for women.