The Awakening by Kate Chopin

CONTEXT: This fragment belongs to “The Awakening”, a novel written by American writer Kate
Chopin in 1899, at a time when women were still regarded as a legal property of their
husbands. The story is a narrative about the sexual and sensual coming to consciousness of a
young married woman. Chopin’s work was banned as it was defined as “sex fiction” because of
the themes involved in the book. In the 1960s and 1970s, though, the novel was recovered by
feminist literary criticism.

SOME POINTS:
- Genre: novel; poetic prose style; New Woman Writing, Local Color
- Themes: patriarchy, marriage, motherhood, women´s independence, self-
assertiveness, desire and sexuality
- Anonymous narrator; seems to align with Chopin herself
- Point of view: narrated in 3rd person but the narrator often shows her sympathy for
Edna.
- Setting: 1899, the beginning of Industrial Revolution and Feminist Movement. Place:
Grand Isle (a popular summer vacation spot for wealthy Creoles from New Orleans);
and New Orleans.

Main themes in The Awakening

- Solitude: more than a romantic story, this is one of an inner process of the protagonist.
Female self-consciousness, being aware of who she is for herself.
- Awakening: the book is full of images of “vision” and “space”: eye, gaze, look, etc.
(represent opening the eyes to a new reality); the sea is a symbol of freedom and
awakening too.
Elements which help Edna’s awakening: learning to swim (it’s like a baptism, first
realisation of her capacity); Robert and her romantic love for him; friendship with Ms.
Reisz and Adele (they play two extreme: Ms Reisz represents art, independence,
single, free individual; Adele represents being a wife and motherhood) but Edna
doesn’t accept any of those roles, she goes her own path.
- Other dualities: Edna’s swinging moods between exaltation and depression. “Mad”
and rebellious Edna against her husband and family responsibilities. And a “sane” Edna
as dutiful wife and mother.
- Romantic love: the idea of love is an idealistic one for Edna. She lives in a fantasy.
- Death at the end of the book: controversial moment in the book. We assume that she
is dead. She decides to end her life because she has no Robert. Also, Edna is not willing
to give her inner self, personality, individual freedom and to embrace the role of a wife
and mother, she doesn’t want to be stereotyped.
The “swim” could be interpreted as a rebirth.
- Transformation/Metamorphosis: process of formation of the artistic soul. Initiation
and discovery of intellectual and artistic sensitivity by the main character.
- 29th birthday: initiation into maturity as an independent woman.
- Innovative style: close to a musical structure of repetitions and poetic language. The
narrative style mixes realist descriptions with repetitions of key motives, symbols,
images (sea, nature, night, solitude, food, sentences, swimming, music).
- Sexuality/Eroticism/Spirituality: Edna’s spiritual search is channelled through eroticism.

Women in the novel

EDNA PONTELLIER:
- Tries to discover what kind of woman she might be through the refusal of “feminine”
behaviour and style.
- She is willing to give her time and money but not her inner self to her family.
- Learns to swim, further experiencing the power of the connection between mind and
body.
- Is not one of the “mother-women”, not one of those female characters who live only
for and through husbands and children.
- Her art offers her some of the most satisfying experiences she’s capable of having.
- Rejects marriage. She sees this as a way of possession. Property contract.

ADELE RATIGNOLLE:
- Difference between Edna and Adele is that Adele can deal with her nurturing needs by
displacing them onto her children and becoming a “mother-woman”.
- The novel begins with Mme Ratignolle pregnant and concludes with that birth, parallel
to Edna’s own “birthing” of self.
- She’s the typical image of the women in those times.

MS. REISZ:
- Independent woman, single. Artist. Not understood by everybody.
- She’s a link between Edna and Robert.
- Pianist. The music she creates, captivates sensuality.
- Represents solitude.

Symbols in the novel

- Swimming, water, ocean: represent freedom, open space for the awake.
- Setting, spaces: New Orleans – place for men
Grand Isle – nature flourishes, sensuality, space for women
- Parrot: is a metaphor. It symbolizes the bicultural atmosphere of Creoles (French-
American)