“Poles Apart _x000D_
Emotions, feelings, thoughts, ideas, desires, and beliefs all play dominating roles in shaping the character of people, and no one can have the exact same character because everyone possesses special qualities that make them unique. Throughout Kate Chopins novel The Awakening, Mademoiselle Reisz, the artist who symbolizes freedom, and Adele Ratignolle, the housewife who represents the ideal, devoted spouse, serve primarily as foils of each other while sharing some similar characteristics._x000D_
While Mademoiselle Reisz belongs to the group of artist-women, Adele represents the mother-women (Justus 73). These two women represent foils of each other because Mademoiselle Reisz loves music while Adele loves her family. Adele, the ideal housewife, thinks of life through a narrow tube bounded by the views of society, and she makes Edna feel as if she were packed and sealed into a box and would never be able to come out. Reisz thinks outside the box, and looks at life through an abstract angle in which society has no value. Thus, the image these two women portray in society contradicts greatly. _x000D_
According to Justus, For Adele, complacent satisfaction-never being alone-comes from having no identity beyond her given roles; for Reisz, the ambiguous satisfactions of having her own identity is the result of always being alone (73). Adele never thinks of herself as a person beyond a mother or a wife which causes her to have no real identity beyond what she has been given because she sees herself through other peoples eyes instead of her own. Reisz possesses _x000D_
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an identity because she spends quality time with herself to realize what she wants and what she likes forming an identity which truly resembles her inner character. While Adele wears a mask each and every day, Reisz reveals her true inner self. _x000D_
. Mademoiselle Reisz tries to reach Ednas spirit and set it free, but Adele Ratignolle tri… “