The Awakening: Why Should I Care?
The Awakening: Why Should I Care?
The Awakening: Why Should I Care?
by Kate Chopin
In A Nutshell
The Awakening is a novel by American novelist Kate Chopin about a womans
transformation from an obedient, traditional wife and mother into a self-realized, sexually
liberated and independent woman. Despite the books place in the current literary canon
(its now a classic), when The Awakening was published in 1899 it received awful reviews.
While reviewers acknowledged Chopins masterful literary technique, they were absolutely
shocked with the protagonists independence and sexual liberation. This makes sense
when you consider that women were not fully considered people at this time: Louisiana law
still held that wives were the property of their husbands. Not surprisingly,The
Awakening was "re-discovered" in the early 1970s (right around Second Wave feminism)
and is now celebrated as a masterful insight into the mores of late nineteenth century
society.
Summary
How It All Goes Down
When the book opens, Edna Pontellier is an obedient wife and mother vacationing at Grand
Isle with her family. While there, however, Edna become close to a young man named
Robert Lebrun. Before they act on their mutual romantic interest in each other, Robert
leaves for Mexico. Edna is lonely without his companionship, but shortly after her return
to New Orleans (where she usually lives with her family), she picks up the male equivalent
of a mistress. Although she does not love Alcee Arobin, he awakens various sexual
passions within her.
Themes
Identity
The Awakening is largely about an identity crisis. Dissatisfied with her labels as "wife" and
"mother," Edna Pontellier seeks an independence that is hard to come by for Victorian
women. The "awakening" that Edna experiences is the awakening of her true self her real
humanity that had lain dormant under a socialized exterior. The unleashing of the Inner
Edna in the face of societal convention constitutes the main thrust of the novel.
Marriage
In The Awakening, marriage is a huge barrier to happiness and individual fulfillment
because the archetypical marriage had an "I Tarzan, you Jane" dynamic. At the start of the
novel, Edna is barely conscious of her habit of simply acquiescing to her husbands orders,
but as the book progresses, she begins to disobey his commands and make her own
decisions about how to spend her time and energy. Furthermore, by the end of the book
that Edna is so disillusioned by the whole institution of marriage that she doesnt even want
to marry the man that she truly loves.
Love
In The Awakening, love is a fantasy. Its used in jest by the Creole community (Robert
Lebrun in particular), and we also know that Edna has a history of infatuations that
culminate in a crush on the aforementioned Robert. This time, however, Robert swears its
real. But after they declare their love for each other, reality sets in. They have different
priorities: he wants marriage, she wants freedom. This novel really doesnt fall for the whole
"true love" shtick.
Repression
Repression plays out subtly in The Awakening, as the open, "free-speaking" Creoles who
are partly responsible for Ednas awakening (artistically, sexually, etc.) turn out to be all talk
and no walk. At the end of the day, the Creoles really do expect husbands and wives to be
faithful to one another. They limit their scandalous behavior to flirtatious talk and "dirty"
novels. Restraint is the name of the game here. In contrast, Edna, who begins the novel as
very repressed, learns the talk and then walks the walk.
Family
In The Awakening, Edna Pontellier challenges her role as a mother while Adele Ratignolle
fulfills it to a tee. Motherhood is not a dynamic or fluid concept in The Awakening, but rather
a static, idealized image that all women should aspire to. This image functions as an ideal
while at the same time holding women to an impossible standard. Edna refuses to play this
game as she considers her children to be perfectly secure and happy without involvement
on her part.
these impulses. Moreover, we can also see Ednas "awakening" as the awakening of her
true inner self that has been operating below the level of her conscious mind.
Analysis
Birds
Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory
Several types of birds appear repeatedly in The Awakening. Well break it down for you.
The Sea
Cigars
Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory
Cigars appear over and over in The Awakening as a symbol of masculinity and traditional
manhood. Victorian women were not allowed to smoke at all, and certainly not cigars.
Interestingly, Kate Chopin herself defied this restriction by smoking often in public. She was
ostracized for her behavior.
Setting
Where It All Goes Down
Narrator:
Who is the narrator, can she or he read minds, and, more importantly, can we
trust her or him?
thoughts: "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."
(Theres no way a narrator pretending to be a fly on the wall would know that.) What takes
this text from third person limited to third person omniscient, however, are the scenes
where Edna is not present.
Lets take a closer look at the scenes lacking Edna: the opening scene with Mr. Pontellier
(and the parrot), the scene where Adele warns Robert to stay away from Edna, the scene
where Mr. Pontellier seeks medical advice, and the last chapter with Victor and Mariequitas
points of view. The non-Edna scenes show us the ways in which Edna is discussed/viewed
by those close to her. This third person omniscient business, in other words, helps us
understand Edna. In the opening pages of the novel, Mr. Pontellier views Edna as his
property. During Adeles conversation with Robert, we see that Adele views Edna as a
traditional woman who will take flirtation seriously. The last two non-Edna scenes, however,
show us that Ednas behavior has become incomprehensible to those around her. Mr.
Pontellier is convinced shes mentally unbalanced, and Victor and Mariequita are confused
by her sudden appearance at Grand Isle and subsequent insistence on going for a swim.
Genre
Literary Fiction, Tragedy
Lets put it this way: Edna doesnt get a happy ending. At the closing of the novel, she
either drowns from exhaustion or she dies intentionally. As for the whole "literary fiction"
component of The Awakening, the entire novel focuses on chronicling Ednas psychological
journey rather than relating exciting plot details.
Tone
Take a story's temperature by studying its tone. Is it hopeful? Cynical? Snarky?
Playful?
Writing Style
Controlled, Perceptive, Concise
From the first page of The Awakening, Kate Chopin establishes her stylistic control over her
words; she follows the formal rules of grammar. Her sentences are sharp and exact, and
her word choice is always precise. Heres a typical Chopin paragraph this one comes
right at the end of Chapter One:
Coming back to dinner? his wife called after him. He halted a moment and shrugged his
shoulders. He felt in his breast-pocket; there was a ten-dollar bill there. He did not know;
perhaps he would return for the early dinner and perhaps he would not. It all depended
upon the company which he found over at Kleins and the size of the game. He did not
say this, but she understood it, and laughed, nodding good-by to him.
Chopin alternates between being very specific and somewhat vague in her narration; for
instance, she may use several paragraphs to describe one object or one specific moment,
or she may use one short sentence to sum up a lengthy, complicated event. We can
assume, since we know Chopins a master stylist, that she gives lots of details in order to
emphasize an event or an objects underlying importance, and that she quickly summarizes
the insignificant stuff so we dont waste much time thinking about it.
It depends on what you think is going on in Edna's mind as she swims out to sea. Here are
two options:
Edna does not intend to commit suicide. Instead, she embraces, a little too
enthusiastically, Mademoiselle Reisz's feeling that the artist needs the "courageous soul
that dares and defies," lines she remembers as she swims out.
She wants to push herself, do something extreme, in much the same way that people
bungee jump or skydive for kicks. By flouting social convention and starting up life as a
sexually and artistically independent woman, she has already experienced a kind of social
death. To the rest of society, she no longer exists because she doesn't conform to any
social roles, like wife or mother.
This "death" has enabled her rebirth into the free woman she now is. The physical death
she experiences at sea is really just a shadow of the first social death. Her swimming out to
sea is her final gesture of defiance at the world, the final assertion of her individual spirit.
It's just that she gets carried awayliterally, out to sea.
Edna does intend to commit suicide. The childhood memory that dominates the last
scene is a memory that returns from the first part of the novel. It's a memory that includes
the mysterious cavalry officer who was her first romantic obsession.
This romantic obsession is placed next to some parting words from Robert: "He did not
know; he did not understand. He would never understand," Edna thinks. Edna commits
suicide because she realizes that there is no place in this world for a woman who asserts
her erotic needs and her independence from society.
So what do you think? Was it intentional or not? Or would you rather revel in the ambiguity?