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The Conflicts of a Balance between Self and Others in Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass and Kate Chopin’s The AwakeningUirak KimIn Leaves of Grass, Walt Whitman stimulates a balance between individuality and brotherhood; and he encourages the individual to venture himself on the open road of life in order to make sense of life and reach eventual perfection. His poems are affirmations of simultaneous self-love and sympathy for others combined with spiritual venture. Chopin traces Edna’s awakening to her individuality. Chopin’s Edna’s selfishness stems from the lack of sympathy and identity with others. Unlike Whitman, Edna weaves her song only from herself. Whitman values sympathy and identity in his celebration of self. This paper explores Whitman’s philosophy as it relates to the downfall of Edna Pontellier the protagonist of Kate Chopin’s The Awakening in modern American fictionwhose self-absorption excludes love or concern for others and whose material goals are void of self-satisfaction due to the fact that the self is not ventured in attaining them. Especially, this paper demonstrates Whitman’s idea of balance between sympathy and supremacy of the individual along with his notion of ventures as possible solution to the sense of alienation, loss and despair prevalent in Chopin’s works.