Buy essay on “The Souls Belated” by Edith Wharton and “The Awakening” by Kate Chopin.

There are two novels of female writers that had to be written for the discussion of the weakness, “The Souls Belated” by Edith Wharton and “The Awakening” by Kate Chopin. It is important to mention the moral environment at the end of 19th – the beginning of 20th century, when both of these novels were written and published. The development of Industrialization in the United States changed the social climate, first movements for women rights have began, and new literature appeared. Women in these books are looking for their freedom in the widest sense of meaning. Sexual freedom is a part of their search
The body and the soul
In the trade and agricultural society of the early period in the United States the women freedom did not exist. Women had a little more rights then slaves. Men were property-owners; they could get an education, work and vote. The social and economic development allowed women transformation from wives and house-keepers to full-state members of society. Sure, the moral had to change as well, but the process of social moral transformation was too backward. The contradiction in the general moral norms was the following: people were ready to consider sexual life without marriage as the sign of body weakness, but it was supposed that strong soul has to prevent the actions of body.
Two characters of two novels are two women who dared to oppose the generally accepted rules. First of them, Lydia, has left her husband for the beloved man. The attitude to divorce was mainly negative that days, and Lydia felt herself to be outlaw. Which is more, other people considered lovers as outlaws, because they lived together unmarried. Another woman who is in love affair without marriage told her with sympathy: “Oh, I’m not spiteful by nature, my dear; but you’re a little more than flesh and blood can stand!” (Wharton, 1684-1685)
Lydia was unhappy because of her position, however she did not want marry again. She wanted to create her own ethics with her lover, but he was not ready to stay outlaw till the end of his days. He wanted to correct the mistake of his weak blood and marry her, but she rejected. «Her seeming intellectual independence had blinded him for a time to the feminine cast of her mind.» (1687) The nakedness of souls was more important for her them intimacy of bodies. «We’ve been too close together—that has been our sin. We’ve seen the nakedness of each other’s souls.” (1688)
Edna, the woman character of the second novel, also met the problem of love, sex and marriage, or in other words, body and soul, in adultery. The awakening of her human nature, of her sexuality made her bad mother and wife. “In short, Mrs. Pontellier was beginning to realize her position in the universe as a human being, and to recognize her relations as an individual to the world within and about her. This may seem like a ponderous weight of wisdom to descend upon the soul of a young woman of twenty-eight—perhaps more wisdom than the Holy Ghost is usually pleased to vouchsafe to any woman.”(Chopin, 365)
Two women character proved that even if the body is weak, but it was not the soul’s fault. The soul has to be strong enough to admit this weakness and to live with it.

Baym, Nina, ed. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Shorter 6 ed. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. 2003
Chopin, Kate. The Awakening and Selected Stories. Edited by Sandra Gilbert. New York: Penguin, 1984.