The Denotation of Room and its Impact on the Construction of Female Identity in Kate Chopin's The Awakening

Abstract

“A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.” According Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own, money and room are the predominant items that empower a woman to gain independence and self-reliance. Thus, this article will deconstruct the idea of the room both in a physical and metaphorical sense and apply Woolf’s thesis to the life of Edna Pontellier, the protagonist of Kate Chopin’s novel The Awakening to show how exactly the notion of the room is able to shift a woman’s personality which has already developed in an environment dominated by the patterns of patriarchy.