ABSTRACT
IN KATE CHOPIN’S NOVELLA THE AWAKENING, EDNA, THE MAIN CHARACTER, walks out into the sea, leaving behind her husband and children and all who would silence and suffocate her. Edna could no longer bear the frustration that she had something to say and no one to listen to her. By contrast, today’s women solo comedy performers speak their minds to all who listen. By standing up, talking back, and acting up, they challenge society by addressing those points where it would confine and diminish them. Equipped with their intelligence and wit, they, like Hamlet, “take up arms against a sea of troubles.” Their aim: “to expose and end them.”
