In these chapters, Edna begins to realize the futility and oppressiveness of her life as a housewife and with Robert gone, she loses the one aspect of joy and adventure in her life. We see this transition most clearly on page fifty-one. Here we see Edna become extremely annoyed at her husband's reading of the business cards. She finds the triviality of his actions ridiculous, she asks why he was "taking the thing so seriously and making such a fuss over it" (51). However, she also found his actions to be aversive because of how controlling they are. While reading the cards Edna's husband makes a small remark on each woman, effectively trying to control her social life. He is a very controlling person and this is slowly wearing Edna down. We
Prior to chapter XI, we only see Edna’s growing curiosity and self-discovery expressed through her thoughts, rather than actions. Now for the first time Edna is refusing to do as her husband asks her to do, speaking out against his control and doing
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.
The chapter’s second line, “It was only one phase of the multitudinous emotions which had assailed her,” suggests that Edna’s emotions are influenced by other individuals; the primary definition of “multitudinous” is “including a multitude of individuals” (Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary). It is as if more individuals than just her self populate Edna’s mind. These men (she hears no women’s voices) express their own wishes and wants, not Edna’s. Their voices and emotions “assail” her violently. First, Edna feels irresponsible - an odd emotion after an unfaithful act. She feels irresponsible as a married woman for she has not performed her appropriate duties, or rather, she has performed inappropriate duties as a married woman. This irresponsibility is the voice of society. Edna additionally experiences a sense of shock at something new, something out of the ordinary. Her customary way of life does not include intense sexual situations. Next, Edna senses her husband’s “reproach” - his rebuke and disapproval. She does not sense his anger or his jealousy, emotions which would perhaps be more appropriate for a man whose wife has been unfaithful to him. Rather, he is concerned with what “society” will say. Her mind’s portrayal of Mr. Pontellier’s response is quite accurate; when Edna writes her husband to let him know she is moving out, he is not angry or sad, but rather concerned with society’s estimation of the situation. He joins society in disapproving of her. Then comes Robert’s reproach, which she attributes to a “quicker, fiercer, more overpowering love....” Robert’s disapproval, then, comes from love, not from society’s cares and not from a desire to protect her (or himself) from society’s judgment. Yet this love is not Robert’s, but rather her own. The love has “awakened within her toward him” - and thus appears the title of the novel. She has been awakened to her love of him.
In The Awakening, the male characters attempt to exert control over the character of Edna. None of the men understand her need for independence. Edna thinks she will find true love with Robert but realizes that he will never understand her needs to be an independent woman. Edna's father and husband control her and they feel she has a specific duty as a woman. Alcee Arobin, also attempts to control Edna in his own way. Edna knows she wants freedom. She realizes this at the beginning of the book. "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 (Pg. 642). Throughout The Awakening she is trying to gain that independence that she wants so bad.
Throughout the story Edna takes many risks. While at grand Isle, she risks the dangers of the sea so that she might learn to swim. Furthermore, Edna risks impropriety by spending so much time alone with Robert. Upon returning home, Edna continues to be the risk taker. One must ask himself, however, what exactly is Edna risking with her, at times, juvenile behavior? In truth, she is risking nothing more than humiliation. Edna knows that her husband will never leave her nor will he allow her to leave him.
The bourgeois crisis that Edna endures--the discrepancy between duty toward others and right toward herself[--] .
As the novel starts out Edna is a housewife to her husband, Mr. Pontellier, and is not necessarily unhappy or depressed but knows something is missing. Her husband does not treat her well. "...looking at his wife as one looks at a valuable piece of personal property which has suffered some damage." She is nothing but a piece of property to him; he has no true feelings for her and wants her for the sole purpose of withholding his reputation. "He reproached his wife with her inattention, her habitual neglect of the children. If it was not a mother's place to look after children, whose on earth was it?" Mr. Pontellier constantly brings her down for his own satisfaction not caring at all how if affects Edna.
The Importance of Setting in The Awakening Setting is a key element in Chopin's novel, The Awakening To the novel's main character, Edna Pontellier, house is not home. Edna was not herself when enclosed behind the walls of the Pontellier mansion. Instead, she was another person entirely-- someone she would like to forget. Similarly, Edna takes on a different identity in her vacation setting in Grand Isle, in her independent home in New Orleans, and in just about every other environment that she inhabits.
The Awakening was a very exciting and motivating story. It contains some of the key motivational themes that launched the women’s movement. It was incredible to see how women were not only oppressed, but how they had become so accustomed to it, that they were nearly oblivious to the oppression. The one woman, Edna Pontellier, who dared to have her own feelings was looked upon as being mentally ill. The pressure was so great, that in the end, the only way that she felt she could be truly free was to take her own life. In this paper I am going to concentrate on the characters central in Edna’s life and her relationships with them.
The 1890’s were an era of rapid social change in regards to women’s rights. In 1893, Colorado was the first state granting women the right to vote with Utah and Idaho following soon after in 1896. This soon set momentum towards of ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920. It was in 1899 the Kate Chopin published The Awakening, a novel telling the tale of a suppressed mother, Edna Pontellier, and her desire for something more in her life. Literary scholars consider Chopin’s The Awakening as a subtle yet effective portrayal of women of the late 19th century and consider it as an important piece of the feminism movement. Throughout the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, women had felt controlled by men and the demands society put upon them. Men had held a discriminatory view of women throughout this era, for they merely saw women as property. Women were expected to bear a man’s child, care for the child, and watch over the household while the man was away. The Awakening was an eye-opening novel in that it challenged the social structure of the time in which men dominated society. This novel showed the discriminatory view of women and treatment of women. The novel also does a great job in showing the dissatisfaction in the women’s lives, particularily through the actions of Edna Pontellier. Due to society’s expectations, women were not allowed to pursue their psychological or sexual drives, for it was scorned by society. Edna pursues these drives as she eventually cannot tolerate her way of living. In The Awakening, Chopin’s use of three characters, Edna Pontellier, Adele Ratignolle, and Mademoiselle Reisz, exemplifies the accepted roles of women in the late 19th century.
These lines, which Edna speaks in Chapter XIII, reflect her desire to be isolated with Robert and, thus, free from the restrictions of the society that surrounds them. At the same time, her fantasy that she and Robert have already been left alone as “past relics” evidences the way that her new self-awareness has separated her—dangerously—from reality. Mentally, Edna is already living in her own isolated, island-like, mythical world. She has not yet fully acknowledged
in. That is not what Edna wanted. She could not hold back her feelings and continue living the way that she was. Edna did not want to live a life that would have her lying to her children, and raising them would have been painful to her without truth. She felt that if she were to follow through with being with Robert, she would be taking away their expression and personal freedom. Edna was a very strong woman in the light that she did not want to give herself away. She strove to be an independent and self-sufficient individual.
At the beginning of the novel, it is obvious that Edna’s marriage to Léonce is not entirely stable. Like every other woman during this time, she is seen as inferior to him. According to Carol Lasser and Stacey M. Robertson, “Female subordination [was] demanded in marriage, [and] the traditional rights conferred on wives to demand support and maintenance, and the ways in which a single woman might hold independent property and contract as an individual, are known as the feme sole” (4). Léonce pays little attention to Edna and constantly ridicules her for her mistakes: “He reproached his wife with her in attention, her habitual neglect of the children” (Chopin 7). Eventually, Edna grows tired of being humiliated by her husband and obeying his every command. This, combined with her newly-found love for her best friend and confidant, Robert Lebrun, gradually drives Edna Pontellier to completely rethink her life and defy her social rules that came along with, not only womanhood, but with the aristocracy as well. For example, one Tuesday, Edna refuses to participate in the social tradition of staying home to “greet” people and accept cards from friends and acquaintanc...
In comparison to other works such as Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn wherein the title succinctly tells what the story shall contain, Kate Chopin’s The Awakening represents a work whose title can only be fully understood after the incorporation of the themes and content into the reader’s mind, which can only be incorporated by reading the novel itself. The title, The Awakening, paints a vague mental picture for the reader at first and does not fully portray what content the novel will possess. After thorough reading of the novel, one can understand that the title represents the main character, Edna Pontellier’s, sexual awakening and metaphorical resurrection that takes place in the plot as opposed to not having a clue on what the plot will be about.