Love and Self in The Awakening Kate Chopin's The Awakening is often said to triumph in its exploration of women's emotional and sexual needs, and the novel certainly speaks to this in a very effective measure, but more importantly, it is a search for individuality and the meaning of love. Through the protagonist, Edna Pontellier, Chopin describes in his novel a woman's journey towards self-awareness. Several phases of "awakenings" can be identified along the way, which are discussed in detail, along with themes of romantic love, possession, and the individual self. Darwinian theories are used to some extent to explore the nature of love and what it meant to Chopin. According to Bert Bender, Kate Chopin was very interested in Darwin's theories on the descent of humans. In his article "The Teeth of Desire: The Awakening and the Origin of Man" he argues that Chopin closely studied Darwin and in particular his theories on sexual selection. It initially seemed to offer a liberating explanation for human behavior, the "sense of animal innocence in the realm of human courtship" (p. 460) in the rigid atmosphere of Victorian etiquette and moral codes. The principle of natural selection and the "survival of the fittest" is well known, and sexual selection is a specific form of this principle. It "depends on the success of some individuals relative to others of the same sex in relation to the propagation of the species " (Darwin, p. 638). There are two types of sexual struggle between people of the same sex. In some individuals, usually male, they try to drive away or kill rivals to win a partner, females remaining passive. In other individuals , still generally ill...... in the center of the paper ......ad the wings to fly. He broke a wing and fell «down, down into the water» (XXXIX, p. 587). , "it is better to wake up after all, even to suffer, than to be deceived by illusions all your life" (XXXVIII, p. 584) Bender, Bert. man" American Literature vol. 63, no. 3 (1991), 459-473. Chopin, Kate. The Awakening. In Norton Anthology of American Literature. vol. 2. 2nd edition. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1985. Darwin, Charles. The descent of man; and selection in relation to sex. 2nd edition. New York: Prometheus Books, 1998Franklin, Rosemary F. "The Awakening and Failure of Psyche" American Literature Vol. 56, no. 4 (1984), 510-526 Showalter, Elaine. The Sister's Choice: Tradition and Change in American Women's Writing. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994