Critical Analysis: Self-destruction of Edna Pontellier in The Awakening
In the novel The Awakening, Edna Pontellier the main character is portrayed as a confused wife who was trying to break away from her domestic responsibilities. In the late nineteenth-century woman of these times had a course of life already outlined for them from the moment they are born: early childhood life, teenage life helping out in the home and learning the roles of a wife, to ultimately becoming a wife, and taking care of domestic household duties as well as raising the children. At the time when Kate Chopin wrote this novel, was not a common choice. Artwork by women was outside the norm and was often banned, as was her work for this time. Edna tried to purse
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this common way of life, but conclusively lead to a life of fulfilling her desires in art which lead her to self-destruction. In short, Mrs. Pontellier was not a mother-woman (Chopin 29). They were woman who idolized their children, worshiped their husbands, and esteemed it a holy privilege to efface themselves as individuals and grow wings as ministering angels (Chopin 29). Edna was far from this description of woman in this time. She could care less of her boys (as they were always with someone else who cared for them), neglected her husband's needs in many ways, and never maintained the domestic duties. In the beginning, she tried to assume both roles of the nineteenth-century wife as well as the more modern vision of an independant artist. Edna tried to transition to this new woman she craved and envisioned she would like to be. As Edna was stressing between these two roles, she was heavily influenced by two woman. One being her close friend Adele Ratignolle, who was the perfect image of the Victorian Creole wife, one who cared for her children and husband, and sustained all domestic duties. Adele, constantly talked to Edna about the importance of being a “good wife.” Edna was present when Adele was in labor, Adele whispered to her, “Think of the the children; think of them (Chopin 135).” She meant to think of them; that determination had driven into her soul like a death wound-but not to-night (Chopin 135). This showing that Edna could care less of her boys, if they were as important to her as her art and her flirtatious ways toward other men then maybe those words from Adele would not have felt like death. Another female influence was when Edna befriended Mademoiselle Reisz. Mademoiselle Reisz was a unmarried, childless woman, who devoted all her time to her passion: music. Edna was enthralled in her lifestyle and admired her drive towards how she lived her independent life. As Mademoiselle Reisz states to Edna, “To be an artist includes much; one must possess many gifts-absolute gifts-which have not been acquired by one’s own effort. And moreover, to succeed, the artist must possess the courageous soul (Chopin 86).” Edna took all of Mademoiselle's comments to heart, to a point that made her change who she was to who she really wanted to be. The “existential solitude of all human beings” as the critic puts it, evokes a melancholy mind set (Showalter 203). Edna’s friend Adele believes Edna will return to her married life. This maternal belief system allows her to give “motherly” advice although it likely falls upon deaf ears. Mademoiselle Reisz suggests she will lose her family but not her art and pride if she stays on that creative path. Once again Edna is faced with two conflicting options, neither of which will bring genuine happiness. If she lead the domestic life of a woman, internally she is unsatisfied. As if she leads the life of an artist, she would betray and hurt the people that love her the most; her husband and boys. These tormented feelings could lead anyone into a moment of self-destruction. Edna had days of happiness and days of unhappiness. In the novel she states, “ there were days when she was unhappy without knowing why,-when it did not seem worthwhile to be glad or sorry, to be alive or dead; when life appeared to her like a grotesque pandemonium and humanity like worms struggling blindly toward inevitable annihilation (Chopin 80).” This was the beginning of her thought of self-destruction which would lead to her drowning causing it suicide. It seems that Edna is quite often unhappy rather then happy. She was given all necessities in life to live a well lived life, but this was not enough for her. A selfish feeling perhaps to the eyes and ears of others but to Edna it was more than that. It was an awakening she felt was appropriate and much needed. In Discourse of the Novel, Mikhail Bakhtin states that “In any given historical moment of verbal-ideological life, each generation at each social level has its own language; moreover, every age group has a matter of facts, its own language, its own vocabulary, its own particular accentual system that, in their turn, vary depending on social level, academic institutions and other stratifying factors (Bakhtin 676).” This quote correlates to the change in female roles in the late nineteenth-century, from the role of a women Adele portrayed to the role of a woman Mademoiselle Reisz illustrates. Both women differ in age as Adele is close to the age of Edna and Mademoiselle Reisz is of an older caliber. The view of a woman differ between the two, in which to cause much confusion to Edna as she ponders over how she would like to live her life. Another conflict that has been on Edna’s mind that may have lead to her self-destruction was her intimate feelings she had with Robert Lebrun and Alcee Arobin.
With Robert it was pure love from the heart with many emotions involved and with Alcee it was a physical attraction which brought out her seductive inner self. This behavior was not common during these times and if her conduct was noticed by her husband and others, she would probably have to face many consequences such as: loss of her family, loss of income, dignity, pride, and self-worth. These mixed emotions that she bottled up from the three men that were in her life caused much internal …show more content…
destruction. Nancy F.
Cott’s essay: “Passionlessness: An Interpretation of Victorian Sexual Ideology,” states, “The concept of passionless represented a cluster of ideas about the comparative weight of woman’s carnal nature and her moral nature; it indicated more about drives and temperament more than actions and is to be understood more metaphorically and literally (Cott 220).” Edna was a creative woman, who focused on her art and less focused on the common family life. She wanted nothing to do with her husband Leonce as she may have felt tied to him. If she acted on being intimate with him, she may never have the courage to leave. Instead, she fulfilled her desires and needs with Robert and Alcee, knowing their would be no tie to a commitment. Edna showed a carnal nature to her instincts rather a moral one. She began to come to an awakening of her true self-identity and started to live her life for how she truly wanted to live or thought she wanted to live it.
There are several contributing factors that correlate to why Edna feels the way she does. I don’t believe she had any intentions on these feelings but that they just came natural to her. Instead of avoiding them, she decided to act upon them and explore further. However, she may have gone too far in which it led her to a point of no return. A person with bottled up emotions tend to explode when they can longer bear the pain, in which Edna lead to a path of self-destructing. When she realized she could not have what she wanted,
the ultimate choice become a reality. In the final chapter, Edna takes a walk to the beach and had done all thinking she could. Edna stated, “To-day it is Arobin; tomorrow it will be someone else (Chopin 138).” She knew that her relationship with Alcee was not going to happen and that her inner feelings were not there for Leonce which would only lead her to pursue other men in the future. This type of behavior leads only to a dead end, meaning she already ruined what she had in a marriage and their was no turning back. The children appeared before her like antagonists who had overcome her; who have overpowered and sought to drag her into the soul’s slavery for the rest of her days (Chopin 138). By this thought Edna knew she was not a good mother, she neglected her boys to a point where she had never really bonded with them or grew a motherly/son's relationship. Hence not having any relationship with her sons, had no effect on the choice she was about to make. The thought of Leonce and the children crossed her mind, they were a part of her life, but they need not have thought that they could possess her, body and soul. This thought portrayed a very selfish human being, she made a marriage vow and understand the role of a mother and then bam she did not care about the ones that loved her so much or the hurt she was about to cause them. Making her way into the ocean, she originally had her bathing suit on and decided to strip naked. Maybe to feel a bit more free in the ocean as she knew of what she was about to commit. She reminiscent of the times when she was a child, when she realized she was too far out and knew she would be unable to regain the shore (Chopin 139). The exhaustion was pressing upon and overpowering her (Chopin 139). There was no point of return and the only person she can blame for this action is herself. At this moment she had drowned and committed suicide. In Conclusion, Edna very well could have lived a well fulfilled life with happiness and love. She choose the uncommon way of life and neglected what was given to her. Her course of actions lead her to a self-destruction and painful journey in which she endured due to her selfish ways. Edna, a weak and fragile individual caused more pain to others then she even realized.
We are told there are days when she "was happy to be alive and breathing, when her whole being seemed to be one with sunlight.." On such days Edna "found it good to be alone and unmolested." Yet on other days, she is molested by despondencies so severe that "...
Edna misunderstands the situation and claims that she is the victim of Robert removing himself from her life. Robert solely wants to salvage her reputation and be a good man. He does not wish to become the man that ruined Edna’s even if it meant he could be with the woman he loves. She wholly disregards the things Roberts cares about when deciding that he is selfish for not only thinking of her. When Robert leaves her near the end of the book to protect her reputation, Edna still believed that she was the victim: “‘Good-by--because I love you.’ He did not know; He did not understand … it was too late”(125). Edna is a woman who leaves her husband, her children, and her friends all because she only cares about herself, and when she does not get what she wants, Robert, she decides that there was no more reason to live.
When her husband and children are gone, she moves out of the house and purses her own ambitions. She starts painting and feeling happier. “There were days when she was very happy without knowing why. She was happy to be alive and breathing when her whole being seemed to be one with the sunlight, the color, the odors, the luxuriant warmth of some perfect Southern day” (Chopin 69). Her sacrifice greatly contributed to her disobedient actions. Since she wanted to be free from a societal rule of a mother-woman that she never wanted to be in, she emphasizes her need for expression of her own passions. Her needs reflect the meaning of the work and other women too. The character of Edna conveys that women are also people who have dreams and desires they want to accomplish and not be pinned down by a stereotype.
Essentially, Edna is not able to fulfill any of the roles that are presented by Chopin in the novel: mother, sister, daughter, wife, friend, artist, lover to either man, and finally the traditional role of a woman in society. She does not quite fit into any niche, and thus her suicide at the end of the novel is the only way for Edna’s story to end. Chopin must have Edna die, as she cannot survive in this restrained society in which she does not belong to. The idea of giving yourself completely to serve another, Edna declares “that she would never sacrifice herself for her children, or for any one” (47). However, her awakening is also a realization of her underprivileged position in a male dominated society. The first sign that Edna is becoming comfortable with herself, and beginning to loosen the constrictions of not being an individual is when she asks Robert, her husband, to retrieve her shawl: "When he returned with the shawl she took it and kept it in her hand. She did not put it around her" (30). Edna is trying to establish herself as an artist in a society where there is no tradition of women as creative beings. For any woman to suggest a desire for a role outside the domestic sphere, as more than a mother or housewife, was perceived as
Throughout Kate Chopin’s novel The Awakening, the main protagonist Edna Pontellier, ventures through a journey of self-discovery and reinvention. Mrs.Pontellier is a mother and wife who begins to crave more from life, than her assigned societal roles. She encounters two opposite versions of herself, that leads her to question who she is and who she aims to be. Mrs. Pontellier’s journey depicts the struggle of overcoming the scrutiny women face, when denying the ideals set for them to abide. Most importantly the end of the novel depicts Mrs.Pontellier as committing suicide, as a result of her ongoing internal
She desperately wanted a voice and independence. Edna’s realization of her situation occurred progressively. It was a journey in which she slowly discovered what she was lacking emotionally. Edna’s first major disappointment in the novel was after her husband, Leonce Pontellier, lashed out at her and criticized her as a mother after she insisted her child was not sick. This sparked a realization in Edna that made here realize she was unhappy with her marriage. This was a triggering event in her self discovery. This event sparked a change in her behavior. She began disobeying her husband and she began interacting inappropriately with for a married woman. Edna increasingly flirted with Robert LeBrun and almost instantly became attracted to him. These feelings only grew with each interaction. Moreover, when it was revealed to Edna that Robert would be leaving for Mexico she was deeply hurt not only because he didn’t tell her, but she was also losing his company. Although Edna’s and Robert’s relationship may have only appeared as friendship to others, they both secretly desired a romantic relationship. Edna was not sure why she was feeling the way she was “She could only realize that she herself-her present self-was in some way different from the other self. That she was seeing with different eyes and making the acquaintance of new conditions in herself that colored
In the novel, during many instances, intricate intimacies are illustrated. “No multitude of words could have been more significant than those moments of silences, or more pregnant with the first-felt throbbings of desire.” (30) Robert, in pursuit of Edna unlocks her sexual awakening alongside his social awakening. Robert becomes aware that he must step out of the boundaries and evolve as a man. Yet Robert still stumbles in his path. He and Edna have a common bond. They both attempt to defy the norms of society. Robert respects Edna’s yearning for individualism and only seeks to accompany her on that journey by form of marriage. However, he struggles to fight what societal ordainment. He lacks the key to break societies chains. He can’t simply let go of the expectation of marriage within this era. On the contrary his relationship with Edna gives him an optimistic view on his love life. “His search has always hitherto been fruitless, and he has sunk back, disheartened, into the sea. But to-night he found Mrs. Pontelllier.” (29) His passion for Edna, conveys his innocent hope for repressive love between himself and Edna. He and Edna
In Chopin's Awakening, the reader meets Edna Pontellier, a married woman who attempts to overcome her "fate", to avoid the stereotypical role of a woman in her era, and in doing so she reveals the surrounding. society's assumptions and moral values about women of Edna's time. Edna helps to reveal the assumptions of her society. The people surrounding her each day, particularly women, assume their roles as "housewives"; while the men are free to leave the house, go out at night, gamble, drink and work. Edna surprises her associates when she takes up painting, which represents a working job and independence for Edna.
There are many ways of looking at Edna's Suicide in The Awakening, and each offers a different perspective. It is not necessary for the reader to like the ending of the novel, but the reader should come to understand it in relation to the story it ends. The fact that readers do not like the ending, that they struggle to make sense of it, is reflected in the body of criticism on the novel: almost all scholars attempt to explain the suicide. Some of the explanations make more sense than others. By reading them the reader will come to a fuller understanding of the end of the novel (and in the process the entire novel) and hopefully make the ending less disappointing.
Edna’s recognition of herself as an individual as opposed to a submissive housewife is controversial because it’s unorthodox. When she commits suicide, it’s because she cannot satisfy her desire to be an individual while society scorns her for not following the traditional expectations of women. Edna commits suicide because she has no other option. She wouldn’t be fulfilled by continuing to be a wife and a mother and returning to the lifestyle that she led before her self-discovery.
In The Awakening, by Kate Chopin, Edna Pontellier is a married woman with children. However many of her actions seem like those of a child. In fact, Edna Pontelliers’ life is an irony, in that her immaturity allows her to mature. Throughout this novel, there are many examples of this because Edna is continuously searching for herself in the novel.
Edna marries her husband, not out of love, but out of expectation of society and her family’s dislike of him. She is a young woman when they marry; she has never had a great romance. The closest thing to passion she
During the late nineteenth century, the time of protagonist Edna Pontellier, a woman's place in society was confined to worshipping her children and submitting to her husband. Kate Chopin's novel, The Awakening, encompasses the frustrations and the triumphs in a woman's life as she attempts to cope with these strict cultural demands. Defying the stereotype of a "mother-woman," Edna battles the pressures of 1899 that command her to be a subdued and devoted housewife. Although Edna's ultimate suicide is a waste of her struggles against an oppressive society, The Awakening supports and encourages feminism as a way for women to obtain sexual freedom, financial independence, and individual identity.
When Kate Chopin's "The Awakening" was published at the end of the 19th Century, many reviewers took issue with what they perceived to be the author's defiance of Victorian proprieties, but it is this very defiance with which has been responsible for the revival in the interest of the novel today. This factor is borne out by Chopin's own words throughout her Preface -- where she indicates that women were not recipients of equal treatment. (Chopin, Preface ) Edna takes her own life at the book's end, not because of remorse over having committed adultery but because she can no longer struggle against the social conventions which deny her fulfillment as a person and as a woman. Like Kate Chopin herself, Edna is an artist and a woman of sensitivity who believes that her identity as a woman involves more than being a wife and mother. It is this very type of independent thinking which was viewed as heretical in a society which sought to deny women any meaningful participation.
The sexual aspect of Edna’s awakening is formed through her relationship with a supporting character, Robert LeBrun. In the beginning of the novel, Robert assigns himself to become the helper of Mrs. Pontellier and his advances help to crack the barrier in which Edna is placed in due to her role as a woman of the Victorian era. Her feelings begin to manifest themselves as she intends to liberate herself from her husband and run away with Robert. He on the other hand has no intention of having a sexual affair because of the role placed upon him as a man of the Victorian era which is not to destroy families. Her quest for complete independence ultimately brings her to committing suicide at the end of the story. Her suicide does not represent a disappointment in how she cannot conform to the society around her but a final awakening and symbol for her liberation.