Analysis Of Internal Struggle In Kate Chopin's 'The Awakening'

Sabrina Torres

Mrs. Tighe

English 3 AP/IB

13 August 2015

Edna Pontieller’s Internal Struggle as a Result of External Forces

An individual’s struggle may bring a single end result, however speculation on the cause of the struggle is very ambiguous. In Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, a woman serves as a paradigm of self-discovery at any time of one’s life. Throughout a collection of criticisms by Wolff, Yaeger, Franklin, and Treu it’s evident that Chopin was attempting to illustrate a modern woman’s struggle for individuality in midst of suppression from patriarchy and her internal strife, and the fault in allowing dreams to fabricate an unattainable reality.

Firstly, the criticism Thanatos and Eros, by Cynthia Griffin Wolff, elaborates on the

change of Edna’s external self as a result of her failure to separate her dreams from reality. Essentially Wolff discusses how Edna’s confusion of dreams and reality stems from the lack of harmony in the subconscious and conscious, resulting in a need for each “self” to grow and rouse. As the novel goes on Wolff expresses how Edna’s slow awakening and sensuous awareness spirals out of control because she is unable to find help from others. The beginning of Edna’s emerging is when she gains awareness of many different options in life and the people around her, as well as what she personally wants versus what she actually executes. Wolff describes how Edna instigates to strive to create a single self, just as “Mademoiselle Reisz is an artists, and as such she has created [a] direct avenue between inner and outer world, which Edna [then] seeks in her own life” (Wolff 235). The progression of her slow awakening “is an awakening to separation to individual existence, to the hopelessness of ever satisfying the dream of total fusion” (Wolff 240). Edna, as Wolff explains, is unable to ever be satisfied because her visible reality will not match the wants and dreams of her internal self because she has fabricated fantasies far beyond the possibilities of reality. One example of a fabrication of Edna’s internal self is Robert and his infatuation with Edna. Wolff identifies how Robert’s infatuation with Edna causes Edna’s internal self to evolve and yearn for something different from what she previously had before, a toxic love affair. Edna’s imaginary life with Robert then becomes one that’s only her own, “this love affair…is a genuinely narcissistic one; the sense of fusion exists because Edna’s lover is really a part of herself—a figment of her imagination, an image of Robert which she has incorporated into her consciousness” (Wolff 238). Wolff highlights the issue with Edna engineering Robert in her subconscious creates a “hopelessness in their relationship” (Wolff 238), but is insistent and continually attempts to bring her imaginary Robert to reality. The need to bring her subconscious yearnings to the surface is an example of how Edna “begins to acknowledge and express the needs of that ‘self’” (Wolff 240), nevertheless Wolff concludes that Edna for in this world, “in life, there can be no perfect union” (Wolff 241) of her two selves.
Furthermore, a criticism by Patricia S. Yaeger, “A Language Which Nobody Understood”: Emancipatory Strategies in The Awakening, argues the influence of language on Edna Pontellier during her awakening through Yaeger locating “the force in Chopin’s representation of a language Edna Pontellier seeks but does not understand” (Yaeger 197). Yaeger uses the criticism to highlight the importance of language, “a language which nobody understood” (Yaeger 197) as an indication of not only the budding unconscious of Edna but the immense presence Robert had in it. Yaeger acknowledges how Edna Pontellier may have had a proclivity to fall for Robert Lebrun because “adulterous desire is covertly regarded in her society as a path of woman’s misconduct” (Yaeger 198) . However, even in light of her predisposition to love Robert, Edna still allows him to distort Edna’s antithetical desires and progression to a new self. Yaeger continually highlights how Edna’s language reflected her transition to freedom, but Edna repetition resembles that of a parrot in one portion of the narrative, almost placing her “in the position of the child who asks ‘Why?’” (Yaeger 204) but unlike the child cannot formulate an answer. Although, soon after Yaeger identifies how Robert Leburn alters Edna’s “experience” from “solitary” causing it to be “essentially mysterious” (Yaeger 206). The language that cannot be understood takes form of Edna’s, Yaeger expresses how Robert’s eloquence in language ignites Edna because she does not have the capabilities to express her experiences as he consistently does. Thus leading Yeager to conclude that the moment that Edna truly has her initial awakening is when she begins her journey towards self-articulation and self-awareness, with a slight stimulus from Robert. Conversely, Robert’s influence then suppresses Edna’s true growth because of her inability to think a part from his thoughts. The criticism elaborates on how Edna succumbs to Robert’s advances with intoxicating words, illustrating the true power that he holds over her with the use of language. Yeager then concludes that the pivotal event within The Awakening was not necessarily the end of Edna’s life but when it began, which Yeager defines as her “openness to Robert Lebrun’s stories, her vulnerability to the romantic speech” (Yeager 206).
Moreover, Rosemary F.

Franklin continues the argument that Edna is an example of the “labor toward self of the female hero with the accompanying inner and outer threats to attainment of selfhood” (Franklin 510) in her criticism The Awakening and the Failure of Psyche. Franklin also compares Edna’s character to a mythological figure; the comparison proves how it is “clear that heroism is necessary for the nascent self to resist the lure and power of unconscious” (Franklin 510). To first address Franklin’s discussion of Edna’s fight to become a female hero, it’s displayed in the criticism that Edna’s individuality is one of a matriarchal society. However, as Franklin proves, Edna wants are different than her actions because she “begins to play with different love roles, such as courtly love” (Franklin 514). Edna is then said to be a sexually awakened being because of her dabbling in different love roles as well as her idealism in her new relationships; although, her new sexual being comes with a cost because she, as said by Franklin, falls into the “narrow roles prescribed by the patriarchs” (Franklin 520). This struggle, as identified by Franklin, adds to the darkness in her emerging ego out of the stifling atmosphere. The criticism then elaborates on how the stifling atmosphere brings Edna to believe that there is a whimsical love in her journey individuation, but instead “Chopin now wishes [the readers] to see that Edna has a crucial choice to make: either to accept the fantastic nature of romantic love and continue on her solitary journey to self, or to refuse to acknowledge romantic love’s transient nature and embrace death” (Franklin 524). Franklin identifies Edna’s labor to find a balance between love and individuality as one similar to both the spirits of Psyche and Eros; they each have a continually struggle to strive towards two different passionate loves. Franklin explains that much like Psyche’s yearning, Edna’s infatuation with Robert is one in which

“the challenge of this labor is to face the reality that the ‘longing’ [Edna] feels for the ‘unattainable’ beloved is the source of her hopelessness and depression as well as the motivation of her life to this point” (Franklin 524). The criticism does highlight the difference between Edna’s claim to Robert and Psyche’s claim to love was that in Edna’s life, “no chivalric lover rescues the maiden here” (Franklin 526). To conclude, Franklin draws the similarities between Psyche and Edna to illustrate how although Edna lusts after Robert she then becomes suppressed as an individual because he is what fuels her life, while simultaneously leeching the life from her. The atmosphere in which Edna attempts to grow suppresses the slight emerging she finds as both a sexual and human being, the criticism illustrates the difficulty in this path comes as a result from the patriarchy.
Another view that reflects the suppression of Edna’s being stemming from Robert and the patriarchy is that of Robert Treu, conversely, more specifically, Treu elaborates upon how Edna’s behavior may have resulted in her possible suicide, this illuminating the narrative as a whole to be one of an empathetic piece in which the former may never truly be determined. Throughout the criticism Treu discusses the opposing views of whether or not Edna truly committed suicide, seeing as how “in these critical discussions the one area of substantial agreement seems to be about what the text does not say” (Treu 24). Treu highlights both opinions by examining various criticisms by other scholars and delving into the text as well as any influence on Chopin that may indicate whether a suicide was her intention. The criticism also brings to the surface how whether or not Edna committed suicide is an opinion influenced by the lenses in which a reader views the narrative. Treu clarifies how in more contemporary times “socially constructed voices repeating whatever is proper or conventional” (Treu 26) may see suicide as a more practical and common ending. Furthermore, the criticism discusses how in contemporary times “death has been brought in as an easy way of resolving the action of so many narratives that it can seem predictable and unconvincing” (Treu 22). Conversely, the belief that suicide was not the end result is elaborated on, Treu explains that it may have been an “aesthetic strategy” (Treu 23) by Chopin in order to stimulate her readers, in that a reader much not “infer Edna’s drowning, it does not follow that her death is necessarily a suicide” (True 23). True continues on to analyze Chopin’s influences as an author and how this may have affected the conclusion of the narrative, the “undefined future” (Treu 30), such as how Chopin may have celebrated her admiration for Wolfgang von Goeth in a possible “imitation suicide” (Treu 31). Moreover, Treu expands upon how, specifically, a suicide may or may not be assumed as a result of the various “voices” in the text that influence Edna, not limiting her to a single consciousness. Treu’s observations that all of the individuals surrounding Edna played a role in the shaping of her inevitable end displays another possibility for her demise to have been one with suicidal intentions. In short, Treu identifies the two possibilities of Edna’s end, through the culmination of criticisms he illuminates how both arguments of suicide or not are legitimate as a result of both Chopin’s influences and a textual reading.
Although each criticism provides a unique perspective on the events of The Awakening all hold similarities to the intentions and possible purpose that Chopin had for the novel. The variety of opinions on the power of Robert over Edna was evident in the pool of criticisms, yet each were in agreement that his influence on Edna was negative because of the suppression it caused on her potential growth. Each criticism also highlighted the importance of Robert as a symbol of the patriarchy, proving Edna to be a beacon of independence and self-exploration of women. Furthermore, the criticisms paralleled in the belief that romantic love was a pawn in Edna’s life, elaborating that even though it remade her as a sensuous being it consumed her; leading her to create, as many of the criticisms labeled, an imaginary realm in which her toxic love affairs existed. Each criticism also brought to light that Edna did not mentally separate her internal and external world, constantly hoping to project her dreams upon others and constantly being disappointed. In short, each criticism supported a different argument surrounding Edna Pontieller’s mental state and evolution, nonetheless they all share similarities and aid in supporting Chopin’s purpose behind The Awakening. As discussed in the various criticisms Chopin strove to create a narrative that illustrated the strife of women attempting to overcome suppression of the patriarchy whilst also attempting to dream of freedom without fabricating an unattainable reality.

Works Cited
Chopin, Kate. The Awakening. London: Penguin Group, 2003. Print.
Franklin, Rosemary F. “The Awakening and the Failure of Psyche.” American Literature 56.4.
North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1984. Print.510-526.
Treu, Robert. “Suriving Edna: A Reading of the Ending of the Awakening.” College Literature
27.2. 2000. Print. 21-36.
Wolff, Cynthia Griffin. “Thantos and Eros.” The Awakening: An Authoritative text biographical
and historical contexts criticism. Amherst: University of Massachusetts, 1994. Print. 231-
241.
Yaeger, Patricia S. “ ‘A Language Which Nobody Understood’: Emancipatory Strategies in The
Awakening.” Unpoken Awakenings. Print. 197-219.