Comparison of Enda and Adele in The AwakeningIn The Awakening by Kate Chopin, the setting takes place in the late 1800s in Grand Isle, Louisiana. The main character of the story is Edna Pontellier who is not Creole. Other important figures are Adèle Ratignolle, M. Ratgnolle, Robert Lebrun and Léonce Pontellier who are all Creoles. In Creole society, men are dominant. Creoles rarely accept strangers into their social circle, and women are expected to provide well-kept homes and bear many children. Edna and Adele are very different friends because of the way they were raised and the way they treat their husbands. Adele is a faithful wife who always obeys her husband's orders. Edna is a woman who distances herself from her husband and does not obey his orders. Kate Chopin uses Adèle to highlight the differences between her and Edna. Edna Pontellier is not Creole, so her relationship with her husband is difficult. In her husband's eyes, she failed in her duties as a wife and mother towards her own children. What Enda's husband expects of her is never what she does. Léonce comes home in the middle of the night and talks to Edna while she sleeps. Then he tells her that Raoul, one of their sons, is sick and tells her to get up and check on him. Edna never really wanted to have children, but she did it anyway. She was not a “mother-woman” because she preferred to be alone sometimes; she didn't feel obligated to be with her children twenty-four hours a day. If one of Edna's boys “...had a fall while playing, he would not rush to cry into his mother's arms for comfort; he would more likely get up again” (16). Enda never felt like she fit in with Creole society because she "...was mostly their total lack of prudery" (19). The Creoles talked about things like childbirth and flirted with others without saying anything. Yet Edna would never dream of talking about her childbirth with anyone or flirting unless she really meant it. Creole women devoted their entire lives to their husbands while Enda was carefree and did what she wanted. She was carefree because she was going out on the beach in just a summer dress and a little hat when she was supposed to be fully covered so she wouldn't get sunburned..