MASARYK UNIVERSITY

Faculty of Education

Department of English Language and Literature

The Awakening: Female Characters and their Social

Roles

Diploma thesis

Brno 2009

Supervisor: Mgr. Pavla Buchtová

Author: Eva Blažková
I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently,
using only the sources listed in the bibliography.

……………………………………………..
Eva Blažková

2
Acknowledgement
I would like to thank my supervisor Mgr. Buchtová for her valuable advice and
comments. I would also like to thank my family and friends for providing priceless
moral support and encouragement.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Introduction ................................................................................................................. 5
1.1. Kate Chopin’s Life and Work .............................................................................. 6
1.2. Literature and Women Writers in the Nineteenth-Century United
States ........................................................................................................................ 10
1.3. The New Woman ............................................................................................... 13
2. Women and their Roles in the Ninetieth Century Society .................................... 16
2.1. Motherhood, Domesticity, Marriage ................................................................. 17
2.2. Education and Work .......................................................................................... 18
2.3. The Beginnings of Woman Movement .............................................................. 20
3. Female Characters in The Awakening .................................................................... 22
3.1. Social Conventions and Community ................................................................. 23
3.2. World of Art....................................................................................................... 31
3.3. Marriage and Family Life .................................................................................. 37
3.4. Love and Sexuality ............................................................................................ 45
4. Edna’s Fight for Independence and her Ultimate Decision .................................. 50
5. Conclusion ................................................................................................................. 56
6. Resumé ....................................................................................................................... 59
7. Resume ....................................................................................................................... 60
8. Bibliography .............................................................................................................. 61
9. List of Appendices ..................................................................................................... 65

Appendices

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1. Introduction

Kate Chopin is in the Czech Republic nearly a forgotten author: almost

unknown, or known only to a narrow group of students of English and their teachers.

This was also my case, but after reading her short story Désirée’s Baby I was almost

instantly captured by her style, subtle humour and femininity. I wanted to read more,

but unfortunately I discovered that it is impossible to read any of her novels or short

stories in Czech just because they were not published here. The only possibility was to

find her books on the internet in English. Only in 2008 her most famous novel The

Awakening was published in the Czech Republic by Euromedia Publishing House,

although it was written in 1898 and published by Herbert S. Stone & Company in

Chicago on April 22, 18991.

The aim of this thesis is to introduce the great American author Kate Chopin,

who is rated as one of the best southern writers of all time2 and discuss her role in

feminist literature. She is now considered to be a forerunner of feminist authors of the

20th century, although she would be probably very surprised to be seen this way. Her

most famous and most controversial book, the novel The Awakening, practically ruined

her career, and my aim is to explain here why it was seen as so provocative and

controversial, even though she had no intension to produce a novel that would cause

such a sensation.

Because Chopin was terribly hurt by the reaction to the novel, in the remaining

five years of her life she wrote only a few short stories. However, only a small number

of them were published – mainly because of her “bad name” that she made after the

publication of The Awakening.

1
See the appendix 1 – title page of the novel
2
E.G., in 2009, 134 writers and scholars of Oxford American : The Magazine of Good Writing were
asked to name “The Best Southern Novels of All Time”, and The Awakening came in 17th

5
 In the introduction, I will introduce life and work of Kate Chopin, and then I will

provide an overview of the nineteenth-century female writers and the topics of their

works that reflect the position of women in the contemporary society. Finally I will

introduce the phenomenon of the New Woman, a feminist ideal that emerged in the late

nineteenth century. Second chapter is dedicated to a short description of social status of

women in the nineteenth century America. The chapters deal with changing situation

and social role of women, because the nineteenth century is a turning point for women,

when they started to fight for equality, better education and personal freedom.

The next section is concerned with the novel itself, examining beside the main

woman character Edna Pontellier also the other two female characters, Adele Ratignolle

and Mademoiselle Reisz, and through their actions, thoughts and relationship contrasts

different points of view on the diverse topics depicted in the book. The chapter is

divided into four sections, each of them dealing with a different topic depicted in the

novel, including social conventions and living in the Creole society, family, marriage,

individual freedom, love and sex. Edna’s final decision to commit suicide is the separate

topic of the last chapter.

1.1. Kate Chopin’s Life and Work

Catherine (Kate) Chopin was born as Catherine O'Flaherty in St. Louis on

February 8, 1850, as the second child of a wealthy businessman. Kate's family on her

mother's side was of French origin, and Kate grew up speaking both French and English

at home. She was not only bilingual but also bicultural, and the influence of French life

and literature on her thinking is noticeable throughout her fiction. From 1855 to 1868

Kate attended the St. Louis Academy of the Sacred Heart, a Catholic boarding school in

St. Louis. After this, only two months later, her father was killed in a railroad accident.

6
For the next two years she lived at home with her mother, grandmother, and great-

grandmother, all of them widows. It was a truly women’s world. During this period,

Kate developed a very close relationship with both her mother and her great-

grandmother.

Her great-grandmother, Victoria Verdon Charleville looked after her education

and taught her French, music, and the tales on St. Louis women of the past. Kate

O’Flaherty grew up surrounded by smart, independent, single women. They were also

intelligent and witty and came from a long line of unconventional women. Victoria’s

own mother had been the first woman in St. Louis to obtain legal separation from her

husband, after which she raised her five children and ran a shipping business on the

Mississippi river. Until Kate was sixteen, no married couple lived in her home, although

it was full of brothers, uncles and cousins. Living in such a family must have influenced

her view on women and made her very sensible of women thinking and desires. (Wyatt,

“Biography of Kate Chopin”)

She also became an avid reader of fairy tales, poetry, and religious allegories, as

well as classic and contemporary novels. Sir Walter Scott and Charles Dickens were

amongst her favourite authors. Kate returned to the Sacred Heart Academy, where the

nuns were famous for their intelligence, and was top of her class. She attended

numerous social events and became very popular in St. Louis high society. She also

became interested in the movement of women’s suffrage although she never became

politically very active.

Kate spent the Civil War in St. Louis, a city where residents supported both the

Union and the Confederacy. Kate's family had slaves in the house when she was a child,

and her half brother, a Confederate soldier, was captured by Union forces during the

Civil War and died of typhoid fever.

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 From 1867 to 1870 Kate kept a commonplace book of essays, poems, diary

entries, and copied extracts, and in 1869 she wrote “Emancipation: A Life Fable”, her

first story.

In 1870, at the age of twenty, she married Oscar Chopin, twenty-five, the heir of

a wealthy cotton-growing family in Louisiana. As Kate, he was of French catholic

background. He absolutely admired and adored his wife, her independence and

intelligence, and “allowed” her uncommon freedom. After their wedding they lived in

New Orleans where she gave birth to five boys and a daughter, all before the age of

twenty-eight. Oscar was not very successful businessman, an eventually they had to

move to Cloutierville, a town in a small Louisiana parish, where he runs several small

plantations and a general store. Unfortunately, Oscar died of swamp fever there in 1882

and Kate took over the running of his general store and plantation for over a year. She

was only thirty two years old. Chopin’s recent biographer, Emily Toth3, has claimed

that between 1883 and 1884 Kate had an affair with a local planter but in 1884 moved

with her family back to St. Louis where she found better schools for her children and a

richer cultural life for herself. Shortly after, in 1885, her mother died. Dr. Frederick

Kolbenheyer, her obstetrician and a family friend, encouraged her to write, as a part of a

healing process. She got never married again. (KateChopin.org, Wyatt, “Biography of

Kate Chopin”)

Influenced by Guy de Maupassant and other writers, French and American,

Chopin began to compose fiction, and in 1889 one of her stories appeared in the St.

3
The most recent and most influential biography of Kate Chopin, Emily Toth's Unveiling Kate Chopin
(Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1999). Emily Toth earlier published a longer biography, Kate
Chopin (New York: Morrow, 1990). An also important biography is Per Seyersted's Kate Chopin: A
Critical Biography (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1969).

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Louis Post Dispatch. In 1890 her first novel, At Fault, was published privately. She

completed a second novel, to have been called Young Dr. Gosse and Théo, but she

could not find a publisher and later she destroyed the manuscript. She became active in

St. Louis literary and cultural circles. She liked her writing to be spontaneous, and she

generally wrote her stories all at once, with little or no revision. She also wrote in the

living room, where she was constantly surrounded by her six children. (GradeSaver)

In 1891 she wrote “A No-Account Creole“, “Beyond the Bayou”, and “After the

Winter”. Five of her stories appeared in regional and national magazines, including

Youth’s Companion and Harper’s Young People. In 1892 she finished “Désirée’s

Baby”, which was published in Vogue4 magazine in 1893.

In her early stories and novels she concentrated deeply on the life and customs

of the Creole5 society, and was seen as a talented local colourist. Later, she dealt with

marriage and presented an unconventional perspective on the theme – for example in

another famous short story “The Story of an Hour”. Her characters faced dilemmas

between what society expects of them and what they really feel, and they usually

decided to follow their own path, not the one of society.

In 1899, already as a well-established author, Chopin published her master piece

of writing, the novel The Awakening, which immediately caused controversy. It

provides an extraordinary insight view into the process of gradual self-realization of the

main character, Edna Pontellier, who wants to free herself emotionally and sexually,

ruins her marriage, acts against the expectations of the society, but is unable to break all

the rules and ends up her life with suicide – drowning in the sea. In the novel the sea is

seen as a symbol of new life and birth as well as death.

4
Vogue was the first illustrated magazine for women, started to be published in 1892. It presented cultural
information, portraits of artists, musicians, writers, and other influential people as well as the current
fashion trends. It is still being published. (Bookrags.com)
5
“A Creole is a white person descended from the French or Spanish settlers of Louisiana and the Gulf
States and preserving their characteristic speech and culture” (Bauman).

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 As stated before, Chopin did not overcome the disillusion from the critics, who

called it obscene and disagreeable. As Elaine Showalter claims:

The Awakening broke new thematic and stylistic ground as Chopin went boldly
beyond the work of her precursors in writing about women’s longing for sexual
and personal emancipation. […] Edna Pontellier’s explicit violations of the modes
and codes of nineteenth-century American society shocked contemporary
reviewers, who condemned the book as ‘morbid,’ ‘essentially vulgar ’and ‘gilded
dirt.’ (65)

Chopin then wrote only seven short stories between 1900 and 1904, “The Storm”,

another famous short story, was also finished during this period. However, the story was

first published in The Complete Works of Kate Chopin only in 1969. (KateChopin.org)

Kate Chopin died in August 22, 1904, after she suffered a stroke while visiting the St.

Louis World's Fair. Chopin was remembered for her local colour works about the

people of New Orleans, Creoles and Cajuns, but was never considered a true literary

talent - until the rediscovery of The Awakening some fifty years later after its first

publication. New generations, more aware of the notions of female sexuality and

equality, praise the novel’s natural and realistic views and have found it to be

informative about early American feminism, due to its themes of patriarchate, marriage

and motherhood, woman’s independence, desire, and sexuality, all from a woman’s

point of view.

1.2. Literature and Women Writers in the Nineteenth-Century United States

The second half of the nineteenth-century United States was signified by a

process of industrialization that followed the end of the Civil War. It was a turning point

10
for the United States. The era is named the Gilded Age – the term is taken from the title

of a novel by Mark Twain and refers to extensive increase of population in the United

States and extravagant displays of wealth and power of America’s upper-class during

the post-Civil War and post-Reconstruction period in the late nineteenth century (1865-

1901). This industrial and population growth resulted in complete transformation of the

formerly rural, agrarian society into the industrialized and urban one. Amongst the

various changes occurring in relation to this phenomenon, “this rapid transcontinental

settlement and these new urban industrial circumstances were accompanied by the

development of a national literature of great abundance and variety” (Baym, 3). The

main literary streams of this half of century are realism, followed by naturalism;

regionalism also wins strong influence. All these styles influenced strongly Kate

Chopin’s writing.

Realism was the answer to romanticism. Its aim was to portrait life with fidelity,

so the authors are less concerned with their feelings and concentrate more on the real

world around them. In Outline of American Literature, Kathryn VanSpanckeren claims

that “Realism was not merely a literary technique: It was a way of speaking truth and

exploding worn-out conventions” (47). Realism is a starting point for naturalism and

regionalism. Naturalism more than realism concentrates on determinism of humans,

men are controlled by instincts and passions, their motives and decisions are shaped by

the environment. American naturalism must be defined rather more loosely, as a

reaction against the realist fiction of the 1870s and 1880s, whose range was limited to

middle-class or “local colour” topics, with taboos on sexuality and violence. Regional

literature or local colour literature is fiction and poetry that focuses on the characters,

dialect, customs, topography, and other features particular to a specific region.

Influenced by South western and Down East humour, between the Civil War and the

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end of the nineteenth century this mode of writing became dominant in American

literature. According to The Oxford Companion to American Literature, “In local-

colour literature one finds the dual influence of romanticism and realism, since the

author frequently looks away from ordinary life to distant lands, strange customs, or

exotic scenes, but retains through minute detail a sense of fidelity and accuracy of

description”(439). Very often the use of dialect is to establish credibility and

authenticity of regional characters, use of detailed description, especially of small,

seemingly insignificant details central to an understanding of the region. Kate Chopin

was inspired by Darwin, Spencer, Huxley as well by Flaubert, Whitman, Swinburne and

Ibsen. In particular she felt soul connection with Maupassant: “Here was a man who had

escaped from tradition and authority, who had entered into himself and looked out upon

life through his own being and with his own eyes” (Showalter, 66). Like Maupassant,

she used irony to criticize double standards and prejudices in the society.

Considering particularly American women writers, their literary tendencies

especially in the first half of the nineteen century more then often clashed against the

socially imposed gender conventions. After The Civil War, women started to demand

higher education, profession and the political influence. Naturally, the female local

colourists started to be attracted to the male topics and were seeking the same artistic

independence; they wanted to present themselves as artists – as Elaine Showalter

comments in Sisters Choice: “Among the differences the local colourists saw between

themselves and their predecessors was the question of ´selfishness´, the ability to put

their literary ambitions before domestic duties” (67).We must bear in mind that women

as such were still primarily associated with motherhood and domesticity. As Jay

Kleinberg points out: “Women were the guardians of the homes and the family and the

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repositories of moral virtue.” Yet, the women writers of this generation chose to put

their writings at the first place.

Chopin’s use of realism helped in the beginning of her writing to escape from

the sentiment and romanticism, from idealization of marriage, family and love, but

gradually she found out that this mode is too restrictive and developed her own

imaginative and sensual style. The Awakening is a fine mixture of realism, local color

writing and symbolism. Of course this change in women’s writing did not concern only

Kate Chopin:

While not modernist in the same way as such writers as Gilman, Stein,
Richardson and Sinclair (with their stream of consciousness, foregrounding of
language, non-objective experimental point of view, innovative thematic, and
stylistic disruptions, as well as narrative-time deconstructions), Chopin and her
near contemporaries – Sarah Orne Jewett, Edith Wharton, Willa Cather, Barbara
Baynton, Miles Franklin and others were moving, in their separate and distinct
ways, out of realism and beyond its (eventual) authoritarianism of alleged
objectivity, neutrality, descriptive and representative accuracy, and so on.
(Wheeler, 15)

The result was that in the late nineteenth century, many women novelists started to

recognize that realism can not be the only way how to express their feelings, thoughts

and ideals and were able to invent their own original way of writing.

1.3. The New Woman

The female authors started to write more openly about their self-awareness and

growing independence in the men’s world. The phenomenon of “The New Woman”

demanding social, political and economic equality appeared as a social construct of the

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last decade of the nineteenth century. The term was firstly used in 1894 by the feminist

novelist Sarah Grand. (Bland in Rendall, 143)

The New Woman pushed against the limits set by male-dominated society, and

Kate Chopin’s novel The Awakening is considered to be one of the turn points of the

female literature, depicting a woman and her struggle in search of independence and

self realization.

For some women, the New Woman movement provided support for women who

wanted to work and learn for themselves, and who started to question the idea of

marriage and the inequality of women. For other women, for example already

mentioned Sarah Grand, the New Woman movement allowed women to speak out not

only about the inequality of women, but about middle-class women’s responsibilities to

the nation. The term was used to describe women who were pushing against the limits

imposed on women by society. Today she might be called a liberated woman or a

feminist. In New Womanhood, Winifred Cooley claims:

[…] The finest achievement of the new woman has been personal liberty. This is
the foundation of civilization; and as long as any one class is watched
suspiciously, even fondly guarded, and protected, so long will that class not only
be weak, and treacherous, individually, but parasitic, and a collective danger to
the community….As long as caprice and scheming are considered feminine
virtues, as long as man is the only wage-earner, doling out sums of money, or
scattering lavishly, so long will women be degraded, even if they are perfectly
contented, and men are willing to labor to keep them in idleness! ...The new
woman, in the sense of the best woman, the flower of all the womanhood of past
ages, has come to stay - if civilization is to endure. The sufferings of the past have
but strengthened her, maternity has deepened her, education is broadening her -
and she now knows that she must perfect herself if she would perfect the race, and
leave her imprint upon immortality, through her offspring or her works. (31)

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 Kate Chopin identified with this movement, but she has never been an activist

and never joined the suffrage movement. She can not be seen as a social reformer; her

goal was not to change the world but to describe it accurately, to show people the truth

about the lives of women and men in the nineteenth-century America she knew.

(KateChopin.org)

She was amongst the first American authors to write truthfully about women's

hidden lives, about female sexuality, and about some of the complexities and

contradictions in women’s relationships with their husbands and towards society. The

Awakening includes elements of realistic narrative, vivid social commentary and

psychological drama, and makes it a precursor of American modernism and also literary

feminism, because it depicts the woman who demanded more than to be a wife and a

mother.

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2. Women and their Roles in the Ninetieth Century Society

In this chapter, the role of women in society of the late nineteenth century will

be discussed. Playing the “roles” in our lives seems to be perfectly natural; our social

and moral rules, the system functioning of our society, depend on this role playing. The

role is the expected behaviour; we simply have to behave according to certain patterns,

which are connected with the social roles. These roles can be achieved – when a person

behaves voluntarily according to his or her personal skills, abilities, efforts, it means,

there is always choice involved, or ascribed – when the person behaves according to

expectations of the society, sometimes against his free will. We speak about the inner

role conflict, which is a special form of social conflict that takes place when one is

forced to take on two different and incompatible roles at the same time. For example, a

woman may find conflict between her role as a mother and her role as an employee.

(Čačka, 151)

Through the centuries, we seemed to fulfil the patriarchal pattern, dividing

strictly the male and female roles and expected behaviour attached to them. According

to the Parsons model6, which was developed by a famous American sociologist Talcott

Parsons7, the nineteenth century tended towards the Model A. His table is used to

contrast and illustrate extreme positions on gender roles, where Model A describes total

separation of male and female roles, while Model B describes the complete dissolution

of barriers between gender roles. (The examples are based on the context of the culture

and infrastructure of the United States.)

6
“Gender Role.” Wikipedia. 19 October 2009 <<http://doggo.tripod.com/dogg18yippiedemands.html>>

7
Parsons is also the author of a model of so called nuclear family (a family group consisting of most
commonly, a father and mother and their children).

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Table 1: Parsons Model

Model B - Total integration of

Model A - Total role segregation
roles

Gender-specific education; high Co-educative schools, same content

Education professional qualification is of classes for girls and boys, same
important only for the man qualification for men and women.
The workplace is not the primary For women, career is just as
area of women; career and important as for men; Therefore
Profession
professional advancement is equal professional opportunities for
deemed unimportant for women men and women are necessary.
Housekeeping and child care are
the primary functions of the All housework is done by both
Housework woman; participation of the man parties to the marriage in equal
in these functions is only partially shares.
wanted.
Neither partner dominates; solutions
In case of conflict, man has the
do not always follow the principle
Decision last say, for example in choosing
of finding a concerted decision;
making the place to live, choice of school
status quo is maintained if
for children, buying decisions
disagreement occurs.
Woman takes care of the largest
Child care
part of these functions; she Man and woman share these
and
educates children and cares for functions equally.
education
them in every way

Of course, the models represent extremes, but I used this table to illustrate the

situation of a female in a typical family in the nineteenth century USA. According to

Kleinberg, in 1820 United States women rarely had jobs and no vote right. In order to

understand better the context of The Awakening, I sum up some general important facts

about life of women in the nineteenth century United States.

2.1. Motherhood, Domesticity, Marriage

Motherhood was glorified and seen as the most important female responsibility.

In the Mother Book by Lydia Maria Child we could read that “the woman who is not

17
willing to sacrifice a good deal in such a cause does not deserve to be a mother.” (qtd. in

Kleinberg). Women themselves believed in female responsibility for domestic affairs

and believed that domestic activities were as naturally belonging to women as

childbirth; they were associated with motherhood and domesticity. This power over the

home gave women both rights and responsibilities, and justified somehow their other

activities outside the home, but only in the name of the home. A man was the

breadwinner, who had to support his family, a woman was there to take care of children

and create “home”. Besides domesticity, women were also expected to be pious, pure,

and submissive to men. These four components were considered by many at the time to

be “the natural state” of womanhood and created the basis of so called “Cult of

Domesticity and True Womanhood”.

According to the cult, roles and assigned responsibilities performed by men and

women were strictly separated according to their nature. The man was expected to be

reasonable, self-confident, individualistic and materialistic whereas woman should have

been dependent, loving, virtuous, pure, gentle, and sacrificing. While women were

controlled by emotions and used their intuition, which made them in the eyes of society

irrational, passive and compassionate, men using their intellect were therefore supposed

to be more rational, active and powerful. (Truewoman)

Under English common law, which was adopted by the United States after

independence, the identity of the wife was merged into that of the husband; he was a

legal person but she was not. After the marriage, he received all her personal property,

and managed all property owned by her. In return, the husband was obliged to support

his wife and children. A married woman, therefore, could not sign a contract without the

signature of her husband.

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 However the changes in the society could not be stopped. With the rise of the

woman movement the cult of the family started to fade. Single women started to

develop a new point of view, in which marriage was not necessarily seen as the only

option. As Sarah Grand expressed: “Thinking for herself, the modern girl knows that a

woman’s life is not longer considered a failure simply because she does not marry.”(e or

diff.)

2.2. Education and Work

Another big issue was education for women. In the eighteenth century, girls

attended dame schools and state schools and their education usually ended at the age of

twelve, it means at primary level. They had no access to the academies and colleges

which offered advanced education to boys. But already in the eighteenth century, the

situation started to improve. As the authors summarized in the survey Women's Colleges

in the United States: History, Issues, and Challenges:

The development of private secondary schools for young women, so called

seminaries, during the early 1800's was the beginning of the interest in
furthering educational opportunities for women. Women’s colleges were
founded during the mid and late nineteenth century in response to a need for
advanced education for women at a time when they were not admitted to most
institutions of higher education. Societal trends such as an increase in labour
saving devices in the home, a shortage of teachers due to the growth of common
schools, a proliferation of reading materials for women, and more philanthropic
and some limited employment opportunities for women due to the Civil War led
to an increased demand for higher education for women.

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By the end of the ninetieth century, educational level of women rose and more and more

women attended high schools, worked in offices and shops, and attended the colleges.

Of course, there was no equality with men. As Jay Kleinberg stressed in her pamphlet:

The Supreme Court used assumptions about gender roles, women’s supposed
weakness, and the vested interest of the state in preserving the vigour and
strength of the race to differentiate between the sexes. It sought to protect
(potential) motherhood ant the expense of individual interest, needs, or
capabilities. …. By viewing women primarily as mothers, the Supreme Court
foreclosed job opportunities and limited women’s citizenship rights.

During the nineteenth century the public started to believe that and educated girl might

become a better daughter, mother and wife, which lead to increasing number of

women’s colleges.

Of course, in the upper middle class society, the lady could afford to have

servants. However, it did not mean that she did nothing. She was in charge of the

house, which meant to supervise the servants and divide the work so the household

operated smoothly, take care of buying foods, prepare menus and of course to take care

of children.

2.3. The Beginnings of Woman Movement

Margaret Fuller, a journalist, critic and women’s rights activist, published in

1843 the first major feminist work in the United States: Woman in the Nineteenth

Century. Early woman movement activist, who were active in the abolitionism

20
movement8, increasingly began to compare women’s situation with the plight of African

American slaves, because both were expected to be passive, cooperative, and obedient.

In addition, the legal status of both slaves and women was unequal to that of white men.

This new polemic blamed men for all the restrictions of women’s role, and argued that

the relationship between the sexes was one-sided, controlling and oppressive.

The effort to secure women’s rights began at a convention in Seneca Falls, New

York, in 1848. A group of women and men drafted and approved the “Declaration of

Sentiments,” an impassioned demand for equal rights for women, including the right to

vote. The women “moved out of their homes to initiate measures of charitable

benevolence, temperance, and social welfare and to instigate struggle for civic rights,

social freedom, higher education, remunerative occupations, and the ballot” (Cott, 3).

This first convention of women set the groundwork for the women’s rights movement.

Women’s groups continued to organize seminars to educate women about social and

political issues and to allow a forum for women's discussions. While women did not

gain the right to vote until 1920, these pioneering efforts gained a voice in society that

would not be quieted.

Edna’s actions in The Awakening reflect the times and the emotions felt by the

many women who required personal and economic freedom.

8
Abolitionism - movement to end the slave trade and emancipate slaves in western Europe and the USA

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3. Female Characters in The Awakening

The novel attacks Southern society’s inadequate recognition of women as a

diverse group of individuals who may have different views as to what constitutes a

fulfilling and meaningful life. The story takes place in the late nineteenth century in

Grand Isle, a summer holiday resort popular with the wealthy inhabitants of nearby

New Orleans, the Creoles, and where the main heroine, Edna Pontellier, arrives with her

family – husband Léonce and their two sons. During this stay, she discovers her own

identity and acknowledges her emotional and sexual desires.

Chopin approaches the topic of diverse womanhood by creating three different

women characters: Edna, her friend Adele Ratignolle, a married Creole who epitomizes

womanly elegance and charm, a prototype of the “mother - woman”, and Mademoiselle

Reisz, a gifted pianist, a spinster, a woman who lives on her own and because

unmarried, not forced by the society to follow its rules, standing outside of the Creole

community. Edna seems to be just in between these two women, she came from

Kentucky, from a Presbyterian family, and only later she moved with her family to

Mississippi. She is a bit of an alien in the Creole society, despite her husband being a

Creole: “Mrs. Pontellier, though she had married a Creole, was not thoroughly at home

in the society of Creoles; never before had she been thrown so intimately among them”

(22). Mademoiselle Reisz is a white woman, older, ironic and not Creole.

Through her relationship with Adele, Edna learns a great deal about freedom of

expression, because Creole women could behave in a forthright and unreserved manner.

However, this freedom was connected only with family topics, children and gossips, but

exposure to such openness liberates Edna from her previously prudish behaviour and

repressed emotions and desires:

22
 Never would Edna Pontellier forget the shock with which she heard Madame
Ratignolle relating to old Monsieur Farival the harrowing story of one of her
accouchements, withholding no intimate detail. She was growing accustomed to
like shocks, but she could not keep the mounting color back from her cheeks.
(23)

Even though she is at first shocked by the intimacy between people within the Creole

society, she gets slowly used to it, although it is a completely different way of behaviour

that she is accustomed to. Edna’s relationship with Adele begins Edna’s process of

“awakening” and self-discovery, which constitutes the main theme of the book.

The next stage of Edna’s awakening is connected with her relationship with

Mademoiselle Reisz, who introduces her to the world of art. The developments,

thoughts, actions and attitudes of these fictional characters will be the theme of this

chapter.

3.1. Social Conventions and Community

The accepted conventions and social mores of the turn of the nineteenth century

United States have been already discussed in the previous chapter. The Creole upper

middle class society in which Edna Pontellier lives and moves, was not different and

naturally the cult of domesticity and true womanhood was highly valued. All the four

virtues of the cult – piety, purity, submissiveness and domesticity are questioned in the

novel. They all carry those standards of “acceptable” behaviour, such as playing the role

of a devoted wife and doting mother; keeping regular hours of receiving visitors to

further her husband's business prospects; conforming to the accepted religious practices

of the day, which Edna, as the novel begins, accepts without question, but increasingly

23
comes to rebel against them, disobey, and, in the end of the novel, rejects them

completely.

It is obvious, that Edna failed to accomplish the virtues of the true womanhood

already in her youth. Even as a child she did not behave as expected. It could seem that

piety should not have been the virtue which would cause any difficulty to her, but in

fact it is the first one that she does not conform with and finds the religious duties

boring and annoying:

“I don't remember now. I was just walking diagonally across a big field. My
sun- bonnet obstructed the view. I could see only the stretch of green before me,
and I felt as if I must walk on forever, without coming to the end of it. I don’t
remember whether I was frightened or pleased. I must have been entertained.”
“Likely as not it was Sunday,” she laughed; “and I was running away from
prayers, from the Presbyterian service, read in a spirit of gloom by my father
that chills me yet to think of.”
“And have you been running away from prayers ever since, ma chère?”
asked Madame Ratignolle, amused.
“No! Oh, no!” Edna hastened to say. “I was a little unthinking child in those
days, just following a misleading impulse without question. On the contrary,
during one period of my life religion took a firm hold upon me; after I was
twelve and until - until - why, I suppose until now, though I never thought much
about it - just driven along by habit.” (42)

Religion is not important for Edna. Although she comes from a Presbyterian family, she

marries to the Creole, who comes from a Catholic family, and this act of rebellion

produces tension between her and her father, because her family was strongly against

the marriage: “Add to this the violent opposition of her father and her sister Margaret to

her marriage with a Catholic, and we need seek no further for the motives which led her

to accept Monsieur Pontellier for her husband” (46).

24
 Léonce Pontellier expects Edna to be devoted to him, their children, and their

social obligations. He is convinced that a married woman should not want anything

more than to serve her husband and take care for their children. Right in the beginning

of the novel, we can read Léonce’s mind questioning Edna as a mother:

It would have been a difficult matter for Mr. Pontellier to define to his
own satisfaction or any one else's wherein his wife failed in her duty toward
their children. It was something which he felt rather than perceived, and he
never voiced the feeling without subsequent regret and ample atonement.
If one of the little Pontellier boys took a tumble whilst at play, he was not apt to
rush crying to his mother's arms for comfort; he would more likely pick himself
up, wipe the water out of his eves and the sand out of his mouth, and go on
playing. (18)

We can assume that her way of upbringing her boys was different from the one which

was expected by the society, although during reading we see that the children love her

and that she really cares for them very much.

The members of the community of the Grand Isle resort are in one point very

interesting. Elaine Showalter points out the obvious absence of the male element in that

particular community:

Madame Lebrun’s pension on Grand Isle is very much a woman’s land not only
because it is owned and run by a single woman and dominated by ‘mother-
women’ but also because its principal inhabitants are actually women and
children whose husbands and fathers visit only on weekends. (73)

The holiday resort is full of women and their children, but the closer Edna observes this

community and its conventional way of life, where women have no other interest than

their family, the more she is aware of her frustration from her own social role.

25
 As I have already mentioned, Edna’s awakening does not start with a man, but

with her new friend, Adele Ratignolle, who is loved by everyone and greatly respected

because of her motherhood. On the other hand, Kathleen M. Streater in her essay “Kate

Chopin’s Feminist at Home in The Awakening” surprisingly introduces Adele as a

feminist, not as radical as Edna, and claims:

Chopin, through Adele, offers her readers more than one definition of feminist
expression. Adele’s subtle rebellion to patriarchal ideology is easy to overlook as
she forges her resistance from behind and within masculine parameters,
manipulating the male-defined borders of her identity as wife and mother…

This is a very daring idea, but it is obvious that Adele’s description in the book is

ironical to some extent, urging us to be a bit sceptical of what we read, e. g. celebrating

her as “…embodiment of every womanly grace and charm. If her husband did not adore

her, he was a brute, deserving of death by slow torture” (19). Not only from this

description we can assume that Adele is slightly overplaying her role of a perfect

woman, and from many scenes it is obvious that she is partly misusing her femininity

and pregnancy to her advantage. Indeed, even Edna is aware of her friend’s slightly

manipulative behaviour. When pregnant Adele is with Edna and Robert and Adele

suddenly feels faint, we witness following scene:

She complained of faintness. Mrs. Pontellier flew for the cologne water and
a fan. She bathed Madame Ratignolle's face with cologne, while Robert plied the
fan with unnecessary vigor. The spell was soon over, and Mrs. Pontellier could
not help wondering if there were not a little imagination responsible for its origin,
for the rose tint had never faded from her friend's face.
She stood watching the fair woman walk down the long line of galleries
with the grace and majesty which queens are sometimes supposed to possess. Her

26
 little ones ran to meet her. Two of them clung about her white skirts, the third she
took from its nurse and with a thousand endearments bore it along in her own
fond, encircling arms. Though, as everybody well knew, the doctor had forbidden
her to lift so much as a pin! (31)

The extract is interesting also from another point of view: Edna’s attraction to Adele. It

suggests that Edna is attracted to Adele's sensual beauty; she admires her, likes her

company and enjoys their walks together and chatting. Elaine Showalter indicates even

an erotic attraction: “The excessive physical charm of the Creole had first attracted her,

for Edna had a sensuous susceptibility to beauty” (35). I can only partly agree with this

thought, because I would not call this attraction “erotic”. It is recognized that women

are sensitive to other women’s appearance; in fact we all are attracted to beautiful

people. Adele certainly is an attractive woman, “a faultless Madonna”, as she is called

in the novel:

There was nothing subtle or hidden about her charms; her beauty was all there,
flaming and apparent: the spun-gold hair that comb nor confining pin could
restrain; the blue eyes that were like nothing but sapphires; two lips that pouted,
that were so red one could only think of cherries or some other delicious crimson
fruit in looking at them. (19)

If it works for Edna, it can operate equally for Adele. Therefore I see her attraction to

Adele only as deep sympathy. The relationship between these two beautiful and at the

same time so different women is friendship, though Chopin claims “the subtle bond

which we call sympathy, which we might as well call love” (36). Friendship is one of

the most important phenomenons of personal and social life. For Edna, it is the first

deeper relationship with a female, because she lost her mother when she was a child and

she did not have a close relationship with her two sisters:

27
 She and her younger sister, Janet, had quarrelled a good deal through force of
unfortunate habit. Her older sister, Margaret, was matronly and dignified,
probably from having assumed matronly and housewifely responsibilities too
early in life, their mother having died when they were quite young, Margaret was
not effusive; she was practical. (43)

From this short description it is obvious that Edna did not get along with either of her

sisters. For Edna, Adele is her best friend, partly also because both women needed

emotional support which they could not have with their business orientated husbands.

During their talks Edna recalls of the romantic dreams and fantasies of her youth, and

gradually begins to uncover the desires that had been concealed for so many years,

growing more self confident. Adele’s influence makes Edna change her behaviour,

because “that summer at Grand Isle she began to loosen a little the mantle of reserve

that had always enveloped her” (35).

As there was already mentioned, Adele Ratignolle is a prototype of a mother

woman, the woman who conforms completely and successfully to les convenances9 of

society, living as a devoted wife, mother, and social hostess. It would be a mistake to

see Adele as a passive “victim” of the society. She is a counterpart of Edna, but she

totally enjoys her role, she does not pretend to be a perfect wife, she really is a mother, a

wife, a woman, it is her fulfilment and mission. Chopin seems to be giving the reader

possibilities how to perceive femininity, because the reader can choose to identify either

with Edna or with Adele. Thus, in the novel she serves as a perfect foil to Edna and

while Edna is not a mother woman, Adele is the perfect woman, mother and wife:

In short, Mrs. Pontellier was not a mother-woman. The mother women

seemed to prevail that summer at Grand Isle. It was easy to know them, fluttering

9
Chopin uses many French words in The Awakening to emphasize the atmosphere and way of speaking
of the Creoles (they speak French, Spanish, Creole, or all three, in addition to English).

28
 about with extended, protecting wings when any harm, real or imaginary,
threatened their precious brood. They were women who idolized their children,
worshiped their husbands, and esteemed it a holy privilege to efface themselves as
individuals and grow wings as ministering angels.
Many of them were delicious in the rôle; one of them was the embodiment
of every womanly grace and charm. If her husband did not adore her, he was a
brute, deserving of death by slow torture. Her name was Adele Ratignolle. (19)

Staying on holiday at such a place, where the conventions are matter of principle

on one hand and on the other hand the directness in behaviour among the members of

the society is so obvious, creates background for Edna’s decision to change her life. The

relaxed atmosphere of lovely Great Isle and the embracing power of the sea are the

main two elements that start Edna’s transformation to her truly self.

Even when the Pontelliers are on holiday, Léonce takes care of his business and

acquaintances. The following scene illustrates his way of thinking about Edna’s duties,

after his rather late return home:

It was eleven o'clock that night when Mr. Pontellier returned from Klein's
hotel. He was in an excellent humor, in high spirits, and very talkative. His
entrance awoke his wife, who was in bed and fast asleep when he came in. He
talked to her while he undressed, telling her anecdotes and bits of news and gossip
that he had gathered during the day. (…)
She was overcome with sleep, and answered him with little half utterances.
He thought it very discouraging that his wife, who was the sole object of his
existence, evinced so little interest in things which concerned him, and valued so
little his conversation. (11)

From this extract, we can deduce that what for Léonce is the expected behaviour of his

wife, for Edna it starts to be unbearable. She wants to sleep, she knows that his

29
experience was not that interesting and could wait till the morning. But he expects her

to care, to be eager to hear all the news, to be interested, to behave as a wife should do.

When the Pontelliers return home to New Orleans from their holiday , Edna’s

change continues, she slowly starts to refuse all those little things like their reception

day, their regular visits to opera and theatre, supper served exactly at the same time

every day, and however childish her behaviour may appear, these actions help her to

reinforce her hew gained herself. The Pontelliers keep “a reception day” every Tuesday,

the official event which Edna begins to dread:

…there was a constant stream of callers - women who came in carriages or in

the street cars, or walked when the air was soft and distance permitted. A light-
colored mulatto boy, in dress coat and bearing a diminutive silver tray for the
reception of cards, admitted them. A maid, in white fluted cap, offered the
callers liqueur, coffee, or chocolate, as they might desire. Mrs. Pontellier, attired
in a handsome reception gown, remained in the drawing-room the entire
afternoon receiving her visitors. Men sometimes called in the evening with their
wives. (128)

This fine depiction of the oppressive atmosphere of the conventional Pontelliers´ life

foreshadows the revolt of Edna. One Tuesday afternoon she decides not to stay at home

without leaving any message for the visitors. When Léonce finds it out, once again he

instructs her:

“Why, my dear, I should think you'd understand by this time that people don't do
such things; we've got to observe les convenances if we ever expect to get on and
keep up with the procession. If you felt that you had to leave home this afternoon,
you should have left some suitable explanation for your absence.” (130)

30
However, for Edna, the order and rules have just finished. She is not going “to keep up

with the procession” any more. Nevertheless, the public opinion really matters, as it is

stressed by Léonce again in another scene when he begs his wife “to consider first,

foremost, and above all else, what people would say” (243). Edna does not conform, she

begins to walk alone on the streets of New Orleans, rediscovering the city and enjoying

being on her own and visiting people she previously would have ignored:

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. She liked them to wander alone into strange and unfamiliar places. She
discovered many a sunny, sleepy corner, fashioned to dream in. And she found
it good to dream and to be alone and unmolested. (149)

Although the description of the city with its rules is in contrast with the relaxed and

peaceful atmosphere of the Grand Isle, Edna is entering the next stage of her

“awakening” in New Orleans. The society, when Edna finds herself back at home, is

much more demanding than the one she got in touch with on the Grand Isle. It is

obvious that the stay at the holiday resort by the sea triggered specific changes in her

innermost thoughts and feelings, while in the city she is forced to question her power to

rebel against the conventions.

3.2. World of Art

Te world of art is represented by Mademoiselle Reisz, elder, unmarried and

unattractive woman, who initiates Edna into the world of art and makes her seek her

new inner self. The character of Mademoiselle Reisz is very unconventional, eccentric,

and although she is often called upon to entertain the guests of Madame Lebrun at their

31
parties with her professional piano playing, she always stays away from the society of

the guests of Grand Isle, she is living in isolation, disliked by the majority of the

community for her unconventional way of life:

She was a disagreeable little woman, no longer young, who had quarreled
with almost everyone, owing to a temper which was self-assertive and a
disposition to trample upon the rights of others.(…)
She was a homely woman, with a small weazened face and body and eyes
that glowed. She had absolutely no taste in dress, and wore a batch of rusty black
lace with a bunch of artificial violets pinned to the side of her hair. (64)

In the beginning of the novel, it is not clear whether Edna likes her or not, but she is

immediately captured by her artistry. Mademoiselle Reisz very soon realizes that Edna

is the only one of the guests who is truly touched and moved by her music:

The very first chords which Mademoiselle Reisz struck upon the piano sent
a keen tremor down Mrs. Pontellier's spinal column. It was not the first time she
had heard an artist at the piano. Perhaps it was the first time she was ready,
perhaps the first time her being was tempered to take an impress of the abiding
truth.
(…) She trembled, she was choking, and the tears blinded her.
Mademoiselle had finished. She arose, and bowing her stiff, lofty bow, she
went away, stopping for neither, thanks nor applause. As she passed along the
gallery she patted Edna upon the shoulder.
“Well, how did you like my music?” she asked. The young woman was
unable to answer; she pressed the hand of the pianist convulsively. Mademoiselle
Reisz perceived her agitation and even her tears. She patted her again upon the
shoulder as she said: “You are the only one worth playing for. Those others?
Bah!” and she went shuffling and sidling on down the gallery toward her room.
(66)

32
Not only does Edna understands her music, in addition, she understands the role that

Mademoiselle Reisz has chosen to play in life and does not despise and rejects her

solitary way of life. Despite being seen as eccentric by the society, Mlle. Reisz simply

chooses to be herself. To conform to the role that society defines for women would

mean that Mademoiselle Reisz would have to sacrifice her music, which would mean a

certain death for her. Because she is so different from the rest of the people who

surround Edna, she is able to understand Edna’s passion; she enjoys her company and

opportunity to share her thoughts on art and love. She is the only person who knows

about Edna’s love for Robert and the only one to whom Robert confides about his love

for Edna.

Adele Ratignolle and Mademoiselle Reisz stay in absolute opposition and

represent thus two possibilities for Edna – the woman which she should have been; a

devoted wife, excellent mother, a charming hostess, and the woman she could have

become, had she decided not to die and live an independent life without her husband

and children. Contrasting these two female characters, Elaine Showalter stresses their

opposition: “Whereas Adele is ‘a faultless Madonna’ who speaks for the values and

laws of the Creole community, Mademoiselle Reisz is a renegade, self-assertive and

outspoken. She has no patience with petty social rules and violates the most basic

expectations of femininity” (75). Thus both women have a strong influence on Edna,

but after her decision to change her life completely, she is more and more influenced by

Mademoiselle Reisz, although she does not reject Adele’s friendship. Showalter again

implies that Mademoiselle Reisz’s “attraction to Edna suggest something more

perverse” and sees her as “a surrogate lover” (75). Once again, I can not agree with this

idea. I claim that during the process of Edna’s change, these two women inspire each

other. Mademoiselle Reisz understands Edna’s passion, and maybe she sees Edna as

33
herself when she was young. Probably because she is childless, she can also see Edna as

her daughter. Also, living the life of an entirely self-sufficient woman, who is ruled by

her art and her passions rather than by the expectations of society, she is an example for

Edna as well as alter ego of Kate Chopin herself. Edna starts to engage herself in

painting, which she abandoned after her marriage and now returns to this activity. Her

conversation with Mademoiselle about “becoming an artist” bears also the credo of

Chopin herself:

“Ah! An artist! You have pretensions, Madame.”

“Why pretensions? Do you think I could not become an artist?”
“I do not know you well enough to say. I do not know your talent or your
temperament. 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."
"What do you mean by the courageous soul?"”
“Courageous, ma foi! The brave soul. The soul that dares and defies.” (164)

The role of art is very important in the novel, because it symbolizes freedom and

escape, but not only for an artist and Kathleen Wheeler points out that “[Edna] is

equated in the novel with the status of the ´artist´, but not only artists (in the narrow

sense of word) can achieve it” (23). As she implies, the artist can be everybody who has

succeeded in the art of being truly self, that the personal development is “an art of the

highest, most demanding kind that a human being can pursue” (23). In the first chapters

of the novel, Edna learns to swim. Swimming, in a way, is also a kind of art, and

besides Edna’s realization of her ability to learn new things, to overcome her fear and

anxiety from deep, endless mass of water, Edna experiences total freedom and ecstasy

of her newly gained skill:

34
 She could have shouted for joy. She did shout for joy, as with a sweeping stroke or
two she lifted her body to the surface of the water. A feeling of exultation
overtook her, as if some power of significant import had been given her to control
the working of her body and her soul. (70)

She becomes more and more aware of her own body and power; the act of swimming

in unexplored sea, faraway from other people on the beach and trying to learn

something new can be perceived as Edna’s first steps to personal freedom: “How easy it

is!” she thought. “It is nothing,” she said aloud; “why did I not discover before that it

was nothing. Think of the time I have lost splashing about like a baby” (71)!

Later, Edna starts to be aware of the power of art as a symbol of independence,

whereas her husband does not approve of her new liking for painting and sees her hobby

as a danger for their family life:

“It seems to me the utmost folly for a woman at the head of a household,
and the mother of children, to spend in an atelier days which would be better
employed contriving for the comfort of her family.”
“I feel like painting," answered Edna. "Perhaps I shan't always feel like it.”
“Then in God's name paint! but don't let the family go to the devil. There's
Madame Ratignolle; because she keeps up her music, she doesn't let everything
else go to chaos. And she's more of a musician than you are a painter.”
“She isn't a musician, and I'm not a painter. It isn't on account of painting
that I let things go.”
“On account of what, then?”
“Oh! I don't know. Let me alone; you bother me.” (147)

Edna does not consider herself to be a painter yet, and feels that Adele is not a musician

at all. For Edna, Mademoiselle Reisz is the musician. The above mentioned definition

of the artist does not apply for Adele, because for her the music does not constitute

passion, but rather a kind of amusement:

35
 …it was she who gaily consented to play for the others. She played very well,
keeping excellent waltz time and infusing an expression into the strains which
was indeed inspiring. She was keeping up her music on account of the children,
she said; because she and her husband both considered it a means of brightening
the home and making it attractive. (61)

As the perfect wife, everything she does, she does in the name of her family and

children. But does she really like playing the piano? It stays unknown, but we find out

that the Ratignolles keep regular ‘soirée musicale’, where they invite some friends and

engage themselves in playing: “The Ratignolles' soirées musicales were widely known,

and it was considered a privilege to be invited to them” (141). For them, the music is

pure entertainment, the part of their social life, whereas for Edna the art becomes a

passion, escape, the part of her self realization and a new achievement, together with her

new skill – swimming, which she has learned at Grand Isle. She starts going daily to her

atelier in the attic of their house, portraying people from the house and regularly visiting

Mademoiselle Reisz.

Moreover, the painting can bring the economic independence to Edna. After

some time, her works start to be appreciated and together with some money inherited

from her mother, she could start living the independent life similar to one of

Mademoiselle Reisz. This idea must have been certainly shocking to the public as a

serious violation of social conventions:

I have a little money of my own from my mother's estate, which my father sends
me by driblets. I won a large sum this winter on the races, and I am beginning to
sell my sketches. Laidpore is more and more pleased with my work; he says it
grows in force and individuality. I cannot judge of that myself, but I feel that I
have gained in ease and confidence. However, as I said, I have good many
through Laidpore. (207)

36
Her self confidence concerning her artistry grows, and she decides to move from their

house in Esplanade Street and try to live on her own, in the beginning only while her

husband is away on a business trip and the children spend the holiday at their grand

mother’s, not thinking too deeply what happens next: “Conditions would some way

adjust themselves, [Edna] felt; but whatever came, she had resolved never again to

belong to another than herself” (208).

Even Mademoiselle Reisz warns Edna that she must have strong wings in order

to survive the difficulties that she will face if she plans to fight for her love to Robert

and her decision to move from her husband. She says: “The bird that would soar above

the level plain of tradition and prejudice must have strong wings. It is a sad spectacle to

see the weaklings bruised, exhausted, fluttering back to earth” (217). Edna’s daring

decision to move away from her house of course attracts public attention and leads to a

lot of gossips.

3.3. Marriage and Family Life

The novel is very much about family and marriage, but Chopin abandons the

conventional form of portraying marriage as the ultimate state of a woman’s career in

the world. It recounts the story of a woman who is not only unwilling to sacrifice herself

for her family, thus seriously violating social conventions, but also realizes and accepts

the personal solitude one is destined to endure. Edna is described as a woman who has

her own choice, who “resolved never again to belong to another than herself” (208). In

the nineteenth century America, a wife had three main duties: to obey and satisfy her

husband, take care of their children and to be in charge of maintenance of the

household. The girls were brought up with the only one thought concerning their future

37
life in the marriage, namely to do anything possible for their husbands. There had been

so called advice books published to instruct them how to behave. In one of them we

could read following:

And this will be the spirit of every wife. Her pleasures will all bend to her
husband’s business. If duty requires him to leave the crowded city, and go away
to some new region she will not deem it a hardship, nor when there, will she sigh
for the comforts of her former house. A cottage with her husband will be a better
place than a palace without him.” (qtd. in Volo, 202)

Edna could never reach this ideal, because she was so totally different from the crowd.

Moreover, the social forces would never let her escape from her marriage. But what

does the marriage exactly mean to Edna? She even refuses to go to her sister’s wedding,

without sending any excuse, claiming that “a wedding is one of the most lamentable

spectacles on earth” (172). Her own marriage is a mistake; we would be tempted to say

from our present point of view. Seeing it from the point of Chopin’s time, it was a

conventional and not unhappy marriage, but for Edna herself, it did not mean very

much. As already stated, it started as the act of rebellion, when “her marriage to Léonce

Pontellier was purely an accident” (46). She insisted on marrying Léonce to revolt

against the “violent opposition of her father and her sister Margaret to her marriage with

a Catholic” (47). She abandoned her romantic expectations and takes her marriage as a

duty:

[Edna] found herself face to face with the realities. She grew fond of her husband,
realizing with some unaccountable satisfaction that no trace of passion or
excessive and fictitious warmth colored her affection, thereby threatening its
dissolution. (47)

38
Her husband Léonce is in many ways interesting. He is a successful and respectable

businessman, able to secure his family economically, and friends of the Pontelliers

highly respect him and consider Edna to be lucky to be his wife. But the more

successful in the business he is, the less he understands her wife. In one scene, we

observe his generosity, when he sends to his family a box with fruits, pâtés, wine and

bonbons:

Mrs. Pontellier was always very generous with the contents of such a box; she
was quite used to receiving them when away from home. The patés and fruit were
brought to the dining-room; the bonbons were passed around. And the ladies,
selecting with dainty and discriminating fingers and a little greedily, all declared
that Mr. Pontellier was the best husband in the world. Mrs. Pontellier was forced
to admit that she knew of none better. (17)

The words “forced” and “admit” illustrate Edna’s attitude and true feeling towards her

husband. Very much a typical Creole gentleman, Léonce believes strongly in traditional

Creole family values, where the father is dominant and obeyed, is a generous husband,

dutifully accompanies his wife to balls and other social events and goes to cafes to

discuss politics and business. Léonce shows Edna love and consideration through the

home and status that he provides; therefore he expects her to fulfil her duties as a wife.

He finds it complicated to understand Edna’s lack of interest in their life together.

Although his behaviour to Edna is kind and he expresses much love and tolerance, their

relationship is passionless and boring, and unfortunately for both of them Léonce does

not even try to understand his wife’s true feelings and emotions.

Their family house represents for him the opportuniy to display the status and

wealth of his family, it is a large charming white house surrounded by a garden, with

ample and generous equipment, which was very often “the envy of many women whose

husbands were less generous than Mr. Pontellier”(127). However, the attitude of Edna

39
and Léonce towards their family house was totally different, he is almost obsessed with

his possession, and their large white mansion is mainly and truly his house, not Edna’s:

Mr. Pontellier was very fond of walking about his house examining its various
appointments and details. […] He greatly valued his possessions, chiefly because
they were his, and derived genuine pleasure from contemplating a painting, a
statuette, a rare lace curtain - no matter what - after he had bought it and placed it
among his household gods. (128)

It is not Edna’s home; instead, Edna is a part of the house, a decoration, like those fine

things that he has bought. When she gets sun-burnt during the holiday, Léonce

comments it with obvious displeasure: “You are burnt beyond recognition,” he added

looking at his wife as one looks at a valuable piece of personal property which has

suffered some damage” (4).

When Edna’s begins to perceive their relationship from the new perspective,

after one argument over a bad dinner which is served to them at home she revolts

against their marriage very childishly. When Léonce leaves to get dinner at the club, she

throws away her wedding ring, the symbol of the matrimony: “Once she stopped, and

taking off her wedding ring, flung it upon the carpet. When she saw it lying there, she

stamped her heel upon it, striving to crush it” (135). This is both ridiculous and sad in

the same time. The absurdity of the scene is completed when the maid who is doing the

cleaning finds the ring and brings it back to Edna.

She is tired of the house; she feels that she is not herself when staying within its

walls, as she comments while walking with her romantic love, Robert, passing the

mansion. When he sees the large mansion and remarks: “I never knew you in your

home,” Edna’s response is simple: “I am glad you did not” (258). This scene appears

40
nearly at the end of the novel, when Edna’s change is accomplished and she definitely

knows that she is not willing to continue her life with Léonce.

The family and partner life of the Pontelliers, except their regular goings to

opera and theatres, does not seem to exist, because Léonce is totally consumed by his

work, his social activities, the city and especially his club. Adele perceives it as a big

danger for Edna’s and Léonce’s relationship and warns her against it suggesting that it

would be better if Léonce stayed more often at home in the evenings: “….you would be

more – if you don’t mind my saying it – more united, if he did” (178). Edna’s response

is quick and fully illustrating the relationship with her husband: “Oh! dear

no!”…..“What should I do if he stayed home? We wouldn’t have anything to say to

each other” (178).

The reason why Adele sees that something is not right in the Pontelliers’

marriage and perceives that it is breaking down is that her own relationship with her

husband is perfect. In the novel, the Ratignolles serve as an example of a happy union

of two people, the example of a happy marriage. The matrimony of the Ratignolles is

content and exemplary, an ideal union of two people who really enjoy their family life.

Chopin contrasts even their way of living, which is different from the one of Edna.

Mr. Ratignolle runs a prosperous drug store and his family live “in commodious

apartments over the store, having an entrance on the side within the porte cochère.

There was something which Edna thought very French, very foreign, about their whole

manner of living” (140). When Edna visits the Ratignolles at home, she is at first

captivated by their family happiness, which is obvious, because they “understood each

other perfectly. If ever the fusion of two human beings into one has been accomplished

on this sphere it was surely in their union” (144). But Edna does not feel any envy,

instead she feels pity for Adele and her “colorless existence which never uplifted its

41
possessor beyond the region of blind contentment, in which no moment of anguish ever

visited her soul, in which she would never have the taste of life’s delirium” (145). Edna

does not see that Adele is an equal partner in the marriage. Instead, Edna is convinced

that the domestic harmony is not the aim that she would like to reach and longs for the

“life’s delirium, which she imagines as permanent ecstasy” (Showalter, 78). Her

conception of such life is chimera, which can be never reached and Edna herself

wonders, what the expression “life’s delirium” should exactly mean, when it “crossed

her thought like some unsought, extraneous impression” (145).

Adele’s words during her last meeting with Edna, during which she advised her

to “think of the children….Remember them” (289), do not only represent Adele’s

manifesto, but it is also her last attempt to urge Edna to consider her responsibilities of a

mother. Because Edna is not able to conform to the constraints of the society, in the end

of the novel, with these words in her mind, she commits suicide, because she realizes

that no matter how much she will be independent on the others, her children will be

affected by her deeds. In other words, she can break away from her husband, but not

from her children.

Mademoiselle Reisz’s life is totally different from Edna’s and Adele’s. She lives

alone, without any family, in a small apartment just under the roof; we can assume that

such an apartment to rent was very cheap:

There were plenty of windows in her little front room. They were for the
most part dingy, but as they were nearly always open it did not make so much
difference. They often admitted into the room a good deal of smoke and soot; but
at the same time all the light and air that there was come through them. From her
windows could be seen the crescent of the river, the masts of ships and the big
chimneys of the Mississippi steamers. A magnificent piano crowded the
apartment. In the next room she slept, and in the third and last she harbored a

42
 gasoline stove on which she cooked her meals when disinclined to descend to the
neighboring restaurant. It was there also that she ate, keeping her belongings in a
rare old buffet, dingy and battered from a hundred years of use. (160)

As already stated, she is a musician and earns her living by giving piano lessons, she is

also made to entertain parties as the only way of being accepted in the society. We are

never said whether she likes this role of the entertainer, maybe it is the only way for her

to be a part of the society and to be with other people. However, instead of being

admired for her courage to be an artist, she is punished for being different and often

seen as crazy. Although she lives an independent life and is satisfied with it, she is very

lonely. Her life lacks warmth, love and friendship and thus it is very easy for Edna to

become her only friend. She has no illusions about the society and is very surprised

when Edna firstly comes to visit her: “I sometimes thought: She will never come. She

promised as those women in society always do, without meaning it. She will not come”

(162).

When Edna tells her about her decision to leave the luxurious family house and

live on her own, she is not surprised; she understands why Edna is moving away from

her husband:

“Mademoiselle, I am going to move away from my house on Esplanade Street.”

“Ah!”ejaculated the musician, neither surprised nor especially interested. Nothing
ever seemed to astonish her very much. […]
“Aren't you astonished?”
“Passably. Where are you going? to New York? to Iberville? to your father in
Mississippi? where ?” (206)

Because she knows about her love to Robert, she expects her to not only move away,

but she thinks that Edna is going to separate completely from the husband and live on

43
her own, maybe with Robert. This would be probably a better solution for Edna. The

house that she moves into is a small cosy house near their mansion, which is called “a

pigeon house” in the novel. It is Edna’s first own home, and she claims: “I know I shall

like it, like the feeling of freedom and independence” (208). The nickname evokes the

image of a bird, the symbol of freedom. And indeed it is really a big step towards

Edna’s independence, she can enjoy the isolation and freedom, she can also advance in

her sexual awakening. At the same time, the nick name also resembles those small

houses where people keep the domesticated pigeons, but Edna is more a wild creature

than a domesticated one and in the end her own house does not fulfil what it promised.

She feels outcast and as she was living in prison and realizes slowly that living this way

is not suitable for her.

The moving in “the pigeon house” is preceded by a luxurious dinner party with a

splendidly decorated table, more comfortable chairs and Edna’s splendid satin gown

and diamond jewels, a present from Léonce. Apart from serving as a good-bye party to

the old house, Edna announces that it is her birthday as well. The day is twice as much

important, as Elaine Showalter stresses: “Not only is the twenty-ninth birthday a

feminine threshold, the passage from youth to middle age, but Edna is literally on the

threshold of a new life in her little house” (80).

Entering the second third of our life, we often think of our way of life so far,

trying to reconsider it, asking about our achievements and making some changes.

Probably it was the same with Edna, she came to the age when it was necessary to

decide what to do with her life and how to progress.

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3.4. Love and Sexuality

As I have already pointed out, Chopin’s work was rejected, among the other

reasons, because it was “insistently sexual, explicitly involved with the body and with

self-awareness through physical awareness” (Showalter 72). To seek professional,

personal and moreover sexual independence in a novel was daring and called obscene.

Elaine Showalter claims that “Chopin went boldly beyond the work of her precursors in

writing about women’s longing for sexual and personal emancipation” (34).

In the late nineteenths, the feminists started to stress “a woman’s individual civil

rights, including the rights of a woman over her own person” (Bland 145). In this,

feminism was different from suffragism, because “of its combined emphasis on

women’s economic independence and sex rights along with the vote” (Cott 44).

“The Cult of Purity” represented the attitude of the society towards sexuality of

women and completely refused to admit something like female sexual drive or desire.

The double moral standard of the society was typical, when purity and chastity were

required from women, but on the other hand it was acceptable when a man had a

mistress. In the Creole society, this was almost a rule; an unmarried man was even

expected to have a mistress, as we can read in Bauman: “Having a mistress was an

accepted custom because marriages were usually business arrangements, not for love,

and the men expected their wives to be passive and innocent lovers.” Some passages of

the novel imply that Léonce’s frequent visits to clubs are not so innocent, but to inquire

the same sexual freedom for a woman was not acceptable.

Robert Lebrun, who Edna falls in love with, is a handsome young man, who

chooses every summer one woman and spends most of his time with her:

45
 No one thought anything of it. Many had predicted that Robert would devote
himself to Mrs. Pontellier when he arrived. Since the age of fifteen, which was
eleven years before, Robert each summer at Grand Isle had constituted himself
the devoted attendant of some fair dame or damsel. Sometimes it was a young
girl, again a widow; but as often as not it was some interesting married woman.
(25)

They spend a lot of time together and enjoy each others company; they take walks

together, have long conversations and go swimming. Adele often joins them, and

notices that the relationship is somehow different from the previous ones that Robert

had. It can be said that their relationship starts as an innocent game. However, Robert

finds that he and Edna have a great deal in common, and although firstly they do not

realize it, they are falling in love. What is shocking and again illustrates the double

standards in the society is that no one thinks anything of Robert’s attention to Edna; but

people would never accept what she feels for him. The Creole man could be a friend of

some other man’s wife, but he would never think of having an affair with her. Adele

Ratignole, who also used to be one of Robert’s acquaintances in last years and who

recognizes that for Edna it could be dangerous to take Robert too seriously, asks Robert

to leave Edna alone:

“I only ask for one; let Mrs. Pontellier alone.”

“Tiens!” he exclaimed, with a sudden, boyish laugh. “Voilà que Madame
Ratignolle est jalouse!”
“Nonsense! I'm in earnest; I mean what I say. Let Mrs. Pontellier alone.”
“Why?” he asked; himself growing serious at his companion's solicitation.
“She is not one of us; she is not like us.” (50)

Here again Edna’s difference from the rest of the Creoles is questioned, but it is obvious

that Adele understands Edna more than the others, that she sees her unhappiness and

46
sensitivity. Edna’s relation to Robert in the novel stays innocent and unfulfilled, but

Robert's attention makes Edna consider further her life, and just before her moving

away to the “pigeon house”, she meets another man, who she has an affair with. It is

Alcée Arobin, who is a single charming young man with bad reputation concerning

women. He enjoys himself in short affairs with usually married women, it is known

about him and he does not try to hide it. Edna knows his reputation, but she is seduced

by him partly because she feels lonely without Robert, partly because she lacks love in

her life: “When he leaned forward and kissed her, she clasped his head, holding his lips

to hers. It was the first kiss of her life to which her nature had really responded. It was a

flaming torch that kindled desire” (218). Edna is surprised by her sexual passion, but as

Showalter claims: “…it leaves her illusions about love intact. Desire, she understands,

can exist independently of love” (78).

Her true love for Robert is not touched by the adultery, for Edna the purely

sexual relation to Arobin does not mean anything in comparison with her romantic love

to Robert Lebrun. It is a very unusual attitude to love and sex, it can be said a

masculine one, because women usually connect tightly the relationship and sex, while

men are able to detach these two. Edna never oversteps the boundaries of their purely

sexual relationship, although Alcée Arobin starts to be more involved in it:

It was late when he left her. It was getting to be more than a passing whim with
Arobin to see her and be with her. He had detected the latent sensuality, which
unfolded under his delicate sense of her nature's requirements like a torpid, torrid,
sensitive blossom. (272)

People start very soon gossiping about her and Arobin, and it is again Adele who comes

to Edna, warning her: “In some way you seem to me like child, Edna. You seem to act

without a certain amount of reflection which is necessary in this life” (250). She advices

47
Edna to ask Mademoiselle Reisz to stay with her and her warning is even more

concrete:

Well, the reason - you know how evil-minded the world is - some one was talking
of Alcée Arobin visiting you. Of course, it wouldn't matter if Mr. Arobin had not
such a dreadful reputation. Monsieur Ratignolle was telling me that his attentions
alone are considered enough to ruin a woman's name. (250)

It is obvious that Adele knows about her friend’s affair, but she does not come to blame

her and after the above cited words she takes them back: “don’t mind what I said about

Arobin or having some one to stay with you” (251). Here very surprisingly Adele seems

to disregard the social conventions and manifests her friendship to Edna by respecting

her choice.

As already mentioned, Edna does not mix her romantic feelings with the sexual

ones, which is definitely unusual for a woman. But even more shocking for the readers

of the novel in Chopin’s time was that Edna is not at all concerned with her husband.

When she ponders about her affair with Arobin, it is always in connection with Robert:

The thought was passing vaguely through her mind, “What would he think?” She
did not mean her husband; she was thinking of Robert Lebrun. Her husband
seemed to her now like a person whom she had married without love as an excuse.
(202)

Here Edna thinks very independently, it might be said even selfishly about herself and

her love, not considering her husband or her children. Edna liberates herself by moving

to the “pigeon house” and is ready to belong only to Robert; unfortunately he can not

forget the social conventions as easily as Edna, who is prepared to resign everything:

When he recognizes the intensity of his feelings for Edna, he decides to go to Mexico

48
because he cannot bear to be near Edna and know that he may never be her lover. After

he returns to New Orleans, he finally reveals his love to Edna:

“There in Mexico I was thinking of you all the time, and longing for you.”
“But not writing to me,” she interrupted.
“Something put into my head that you cared for me; and I lost my senses. I forgot
everything but a wild dream of your some way becoming my wife.” (…)
“Oh! I was demented, dreaming of wild, impossible things, recalling men who had
set their wives free, we have heard of such things.” (281)

Unfortunately at the same time he accepts the impossibility of his intentions, and he

ignores Edna’s claims of independence and self-ownership, when she explains that she

belongs only to herself and manifests her freedom:

“You have been a very, very foolish boy, wasting your time dreaming of
impossible things when you speak of Mr. Pontellier setting me free! I am no
longer one of Mr. Pontellier's possessions to dispose of or not. I give myself where
I choose. If he were to say, 'Here, Robert, take her and be happy; she is yours,' I
should laugh at you both.” (283)

Despite his sincere love, Robert is not able to ignore the rules of the society and

rationally recognizes the difference between daydream and reality. The note “I love you.

Good bye - because I love you” (294), that he leaves when he flees from her house,

sums up for Edna the unfair and predetermined state of the world around her. Robert’s

ultimate fidelity to convention and society even more strengthens her disappointment

with her life and with the role she is expected to play.

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4. Edna’s Fight for Independence and her Ultimate Decision

As an unknown author stated, “suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary

problem.” In the Christian tradition, suicide is a sin, an act against God. The main

argument is that one’s life is a property of God and to take it means to disobey Him.

The predominant view of modern medicine is that suicide is a mental health concern,

associated with psychological factors such as the difficulty of coping with depression,

inescapable suffering or fear, or other mental disorders and pressures. A suicide attempt

is sometimes interpreted as a “cry for help” and attention, or it is see as an attempt to

express despair and the wish to escape, rather than a real intent to die.10

Wyatt in his study “Ways of Interpreting Edna’s Suicide: What the Critics Say”

offers many interpretations, and points out 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”. In addition he also points out that in Chopin’s

time suicide was a popular ending of a novel, an “expected Victorian tradition” and he

mentions other novels with similar plots and endings, such are Madame Bovary by

Gustave Flaubert, written in 1857 – Flaubert’s heroine, Emma, killed herself after a

story very similar to Edna's. The Awakening was even called a ´Creole Bovary´ by

some. In 1875 Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy was published; Anna throws herself

under a train after her romance. Maggie Tulliver, the heroine of Mill on the Floss by

George Eliot, actually drowns herself. The novel was published in 1860.

Showalter acknowledges as well that “readers of the 1890s were well

accustomed to drowning as the fictional punishment for female transgression against

10
WHO Europe - Suicide Prevention (PDF). World Health Organization. 2005-01-15.
http://www.euro.who.int/document/MNH/ebrief07.pdf. Retrieved 2008-09-16.

50
morality, and most contemporary critics...automatically interpreted Edna’s suicide as

the wages of sin” (81) She also implies why drowning was so popular literary death:

Drowning itself brings to mind metaphorical analogies between femininity and

liquidity. Ads the female body is prone to wetness, blood, milk, tears, and
amniotic fluid, so in drowning the woman is immersed in the feminine organic
element. Drowning thus becomes the traditionally feminine literary death. (81)

There are many interpretations and arguments of Edna’s suicide, the first

argument is whether she really wanted to drown herself and die intentionally or it was

an accident, because she overestimated her swimming skills and could not get back to

the shore. It is evident that the text of The Awakening is a bit unclear in this point,

because when Edna comes to Grand Isle, she discusses her meal: “What time will you

have dinner?” … “I'm very hungry; but don't get anything extra” (298), and sleeping

arrangements with Victor: “There's nothing fixed up yet, you see. I'll give you my room;

it's the only place” (297), before she goes to the beach, and the narration tells us that in

spite of the shock that she has suffered at Robert’s departure she is “not thinking of

these things as she walked to the beach” (300). On the other hand, we are also told that:

She had done all the thinking which was necessary after Robert went away,
when she lay awake upon the sofa till morning.
She had said over and over to herself: “To-day it is Arobin; to-morrow it will
be some one else. It makes no difference to me; it doesn't matter about Léonce
Pontellier - but Raoul and Etienne! (299)

Here she seems to think about the last Adele’s advice and really considering her

children and all the consequences of her actions.

51
 I think that the text of the novel gives more supports to her intentional decision

to commit suicide, because she is in a state of deep depression when she arrives at

Grand Isle. She strips naked before her swim and is experiencing the total freedom:

…for the first time in her life she stood naked in the open air, at the mercy of the
sun, the breeze that beat upon her, and the waves that invited her.
How strange and awful it seemed to stand naked under the sky! how delicious!
She felt like some new-born creature, opening its eyes in a familiar world that it
had never known. (301)

She swims very far away from the shore without once looking back and is convinced

that her husband and children presumed that they could “drag her into the soul’s slavery

for the rest of her days. But she knew a way to elude them” (300). Her way how to

elude them is the suicide.

Another crucial question is: Is her death the act of the final rebellion, the last

stage of her awakening, when she acts according to her newly gained freedom and

independence against the convention or is it a failure, because she realizes that she has

awakened to a world in which she has no place? When Edna Pontellier declares “I

would give up the unessential; I would give my money, I would give my life for my

children; but I wouldn’t give myself” (122), she is addressing the essential subject of the

women - the winning of a self, the keeping of it, while Adele presumes that she could

not do anything more than to giving her life for her children. Edna knows that there is

much more to give up, the essential self, which means more to her than being a mother.

The interpretation which is the closest to mine is that after Robert’s decision to

leave her, she feels a devastating sense of solitude. She feels absolutely alone in a world

in which she feels so lonely; that she can find only one answer to the inescapable and

oppressive limitations of the society. Throughout the novel, Edna is mysteriously drawn

52
to the sea; it is one of the main symbols in the novel, symbolizing freedom and escape.

Its association with baptism and cleansing makes it also a symbol of rebirth. Even as a

child, wandering in the Kentucky bluegrass, “a meadow...seemed as big as the

ocean...she threw out her arms as if swimming when she walked...” (41).

At first, Edna only splashes around as a child, as she can not master even the

most basic swimming strokes, she is afraid of water “unless there was a hand near by

that might reach out and reassure her” (70). The first time when she steps into the waves

of the ocean alone is the first step towards her independence. She panics when she

realizes how far she has gone alone and fears drowning, but then manages to swim

back. This episode represents Edna’s gaining control over her body and becoming more

aware of her full potential. The sea helps her recognize that her body is only her own

and she starts to awaken to her physical, mental, and emotional capabilities. Thus the

sea is connected as a close friend with the beginning of her awakening, Chopin

describes it as “seductive, never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting

the soul to wander for a spell in abysses of solitude; to lose itself in mazes of inward

contemplation” (34), its voice “speaks to the soul. The touch of the sea is sensuous,

enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace” (34). Edna’s final awakening, as she

stands at the edge of the sea, is followed by the same description of the sea. These

words mark the opening and ending points of Edna’s search for a different, independent

type of life. She is primarily drawn to the sea, and finally she is drawn into it

permanently because of the freedom that it represents.

Therefore when Edna is speaking with Victor about her sleeping arrangements

and about the dinner, she only pretends. She already knows, what she is going to do, but

for her husband’s and children’s sake she behaves as normally as possible. She does not

leave any letter for the family, as those who commit suicide usually do. She speaks

53
about her intention to have a short swim: “you know I have a notion to go down to the

beach and take a good wash and even a little swim, before dinner” (298)? Then her

suicide would look as an accident, because everyone knew that she has just learned how

to swim and that she was not an experienced swimmer.

The sea is one of the many metaphors in the novel; I see it as a dominant

metaphor, almost a character itself. In the beginning, when Edna starts her swimming

lessons, she is afraid of the sea, she feels a “certain ungovernable dread” (70). But when

she masters her style, the sea starts to represent acceptance, comfort, and self-renewal to

her. By the sea, when Edna begins to be “awaken” to her position in the world, she is

confused with her feelings:

A certain light was beginning to dawn dimly within her…At that early period it
served but to bewilder her… In short, 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. (33)

Edna’s new feelings about herself are completed here with a paragraph describing the

beginnings of a new world: “The beginning of things, of a world especially, is

necessarily vague, chaotic, and exceedingly disturbing. How few of us ever emerge

from such beginning! How many souls perish in its tumult!” (34) Chopin here implies

that Edna’s feelings are completely correct, because everything new originated from

chaos, and marks here the beginning of Edna’s change.

At the end of the novel, disappointed Edna returns to the sea to try to renew the

feeling of freedom that she experienced on learning to swim and on changing her life.

She realizes that although she tried so hard to fulfil her desires of being truly self,

although she untied from her husband and her children, although she was ready to suffer

the condemnation by the society, she stays alone at the end of her long way. Most of the

54
time Edna was empowered by feelings she could not understand, longing for some

ideal that she could not reach, and after living in the “pigeon house” on her own

realizing, that she is unable to liberate herself completely as she can not live isolated

without love and become an outcast as Mademoiselle Reisz. Abandoned by Robert, she

returns to the sea, where she experienced the best and happiest moments in her life,

where she enters the waves of the sea and dies. Zoila Clark in her study “The Bird that

Came out of the Cage: A Foucauldian Feminist Approach to Kate Chopin’s The

Awakening” comments on Edna’s suicide:

…imagine her death either as liberation or as rebirth from the womb of the
nurturing sea in a modern time. Her flight towards the unknown is not a
punishment imposed on her by literary justice. Instead, Edna is a character who
escapes from the control of her husband, her children, society, and even her
author, since her feminist philosophy is to possess her body and mind.

This is also the answer to the question whether her decision to die is an act of cowardice

- of submission to thoughts of her sons’ reputations and to her feeling that her life has

become unbearable, or as an act of final rebellion - of refusal to sacrifice her integrity

and personal freedom by putting her life in the hands of the powers of the sea.

The suicide in Edna’s case does not mean defeat; it is Edna’s final rebellion

against the society, because only in death she can achieve the peace and freedom that

she desires. Death represents one piece of her life that she can take complete control

over; in that moment she has power over her destiny.

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5. Conclusion

“Perhaps it is better to wake up after all, even to suffer; than to remain a dupe to
illusions all one’s Life.” Kate Chopin, 1899

The aim of this thesis was to introduce life and work of Kate Chopin and explore

more deeply her most famous work, the novel The Awakening. Kate Chopin is a

renowned American author of the late nineteenth century and the novel represents one

of the major milestones in American literature. Unfortunately for the Czech readers

except the students of English, Chopin’s work is completely unknown.

The novel deals with the condition of the nineteenth century woman in a

marriage, and has been more recently rediscovered and recognized as an openly

feminist text. As already stated, The Awakening was not accepted by the readers and

reviewers after its publishing in 1899, when Chopin completely shocked her public with

a frank portrayal of a woman’s social, sexual, and spiritual awakening. Before this, she

was known to the readers as a successful and popular regional writer, and probably was

not expected to be anything else. The Victorian society was not prepared to read about a

woman who inquires personal freedom, has a sexual affair, leaves her husband and

children, lives on her own and is even trying to be economically self sufficient. Without

doubts The Awakening is the pivotal work of Kate Chopin, a work which was far ahead

of her time, and it would be interesting to see the critics’ reaction to the short story “The

Storm”, where the sexual scenes are even more explicit than in The Awakening.

However, the story was first published only in 1969, sixty-five years after Chopin’s

death.

Howard in her essay “A Woman Far Ahead of Her Time” illustrates the

disapproving reaction to the novel: “The purport of the story can hardly be described in

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language fit for publication,” exclaimed one reviewer, pointing out that Chopin had put

her “cleverness to a very bad use.” Willa Cather expressed the hope “that Miss Chopin

will devote that flexible iridescent style of hers to a better cause.” One hurled the

strongest of complaints: “It out Zolas Zola!” Kate Chopin was not prepared for such

reaction, she was surprised. She tried to explain that she “never dreamed of Mrs.

Pontellier making such a mess of things” but could do nothing about it, the “play being

half over and it was then too late.” Although her friends and some admiring readers

wrote to reassure her, she was both surprised and hurt.

It is remarkable how much the text of the novel is connected with the fate of its

author. Showalter claims that The Awakening “seems to comment on its own history as

a novel and to predict its own critical fate” (83). In her analysis she offers an interesting

parallel between the experiences of Edna Pontellier and Kate Chopin, because Edna

“breaks away from the conventional feminine roles of wife and mother” and Kate

Chopin breaks “away from the conventions of literary domesticity.” Thus Edna’s

longing for the independent life can be compared to Chopin’s volition to write works

“that go beyond female plots and feminine endings” (83).

Another interesting feature of the novel is that Chopin does not comment on

Edna’s behaviour and does not judge her actions. As Sprinkle points out in his essay

“Kate Chopin’s The Awakening: Critical Reception”, although the ending seems to be a

kind of punishment for Edna, it is obvious that Chopin does not punish her; instead she

seems to be confirming her behaviour and her freedom. This was also seen as

inappropriate, because Chopin as the author was expected to “discipline” the character

that she created as a parent disciplines the child.

Today, when we are living in a society where the equality of men and women

has been reached, reading a novel as The Awakening can be seen as a waste of time. But

57
is the equality of men and women completed? Even today, women are forced to make

decisions concerning their motherhood and professional carriers, even today, some

strictly patriarchal views on marriage and family survive in our society.

Therefore knowing the context of the novel, we can understand its story better.

Edna struggles for personal freedom, equality and independence just because she is a

woman and lives, for her, in the wrong time. Chopin wonderfully illustrates Edna’s

dilemma, because at the end of the novel she can return to her old way of life - the well

off wife, mother and hostess and live the life similar to the life of Adele Ratignolle, or

live a solitary life like the one of Mademoiselle Reisz. From what we have read about

Edna, we can assume that neither of these possibilities is suitable for her, because she

wants to be loved and happy like Adele and at the same time to live an independent life

according to her interests like Mademoiselle Reisz. But in the nineteenth century society

one could not have both. For that reason Edna had no choice; she had to pay for her

awakening, which came, unfortunately for her, in the wrong time, when the woman

movement was just in its beginning.

We can feel pity for Edna or we can perceive the ending of the novel as a kind of

salvation, the fact is that the beauty of the novel is emphasized by its ambiguous and

provocative ending. Before Edna enters the waves, she sees “a bird with a broken wing

… beating the air above, reeling, fluttering, circling disabled down, down to the water”

(301). Edna’s wings are simply not strong enough to overcome the social restraints;

only in death she can find her freedom. When she “heard her father’s voice and her

sister Margaret’s. She heard the barking of an old dog ….The spurs of the cavalry

officer clanged as he walked across the porch. There was the hum of bees, and the

musky odor of pinks filled the air” (303), I am sure that she found it.

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6. Resumé

Tato diplomová práce se zabývá životem a dílem významné americké

spisovatelky Kate Chopinové a jejím zásadním dílem, románem Probuzení,

publikovaným v roce 1899.

První část práce seznamuje s životopisem Kate Chopin, tendencemi v americké

literatuře 19. století a všímá si také změn, ke kterým dospěly americké ženské autorky.

Další podkapitola se zabývá literárním a společenským fenoménem tzv. Nové ženy.

Druhá část práce se zabývá společenskou situací a postavením ženy v Americe 19.

století.

Hlavní část práce je zaměřena na román Probuzení a zkoumá sociální role

jednotlivých ženských postav, jejich postoje, myšlenky a činy se zvláštním důrazem na

hlavní postavu románu, Ednu Pontellierovou.

Závěrečná kapitola je věnována rozboru závěru díla, sebevraždě Edny.

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7. Resume

This diploma thesis deals with the life and work of the great American writer

Kate Chopin and her pivotal work, the novel The Awakening, which was published in

1899.

The first part of the thesis introduces Kate Chopin’s biography, literature

tendencies in the nineteenth century America and it also perceives changes in writing of

American women writers. The next part of this chapter deals with the literary and social

phenomenon of so called New Woman.

The main part of the thesis is aimed at the novel The Awakening itself and

examines the social roles of the women characters, their attitudes, thoughts and actions,

with a special emphasis on the main heroine, Edna Pontellier.

The last separate chapter deals with the analysis of the novel’s ending, the

suicide of Edna.

60
Bibliography

1. Books:

Baym, Nina, et al. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Vol. 2. New York:
W.W. Norton and Company, 1989.

Bland, Lucy: The Married Woman, the 'New Woman' and the Feminist: Sexual Politics
of the 1890s. In Rendall, Jane. Equal or Different : Women's Politics : 1800-1914.
Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1987.

Cott, Nancy F. The Grounding of Modern Feminism. New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1987.

Chopin, Kate. Probuzení. Praha: Euromedia Group, 2008.

Čačka, Otto. Psychologie vrstev duševního dění osobnosti a jejich autodiagnostika.

Vyd. 3., opr. Brno : Doplněk, 2002.

Hart, James David; Leininger, Phillip W. The Oxford Companion to American

Literature. 6th ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.

Morris, Pam. Literatura a feminismus. Brno: Host, 2000.

Ruland, Richard; Arbeit, Marcel; Bradbury, Malcolm. Od puritanismu k

postmodernismu : dějiny americké literatury. Praha: Mladá fronta, 1997.

Showalter, Elaine. Sister's Choice: Tradition and Change in American Women´s

Writing. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994.

Wheeler, Kathleen M. A Critical Guide to Twentieth-Century Women Novelists. Oxford:

Blackwell Publishers, 1998.

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2. Internet Sources

“About Kate Chopin” 29 August 2009

<http://www.underthesun.cc/Classics/Chopin>

Answers.com: “Answers on The Awakening” 2 September 2009

<http://www.answers.com/topic/the-awakening-novel>

Baumann, Harriet. “French Creoles in Louisiana: An American Tale” 2 September 2009

<http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1992/2/92.02.02.x.html>

“Biography of Kate Chopin” 27 August 2009

<http://www.gradesaver.com/author/kate-chopin/>

Campbell, Donna M. “Regionalism and Local Color Fiction, 1865-1895. ” Literary

Movements. 19 August 2009
<http://www.wsu.edu/~campbelld/amlit/lcolor.html>.

Chopin, Kate. “The Awakening” 10 Sepember 2009

<http://docsouth.unc.edu/southlit/chopinawake/chopin.html>

Clark, Zoila “The Bird That Came Out of the Cage: A Foucauldian Feminist Approach
to Kate Chopin's The Awakening.” Journal for Cultural Research 12.4 (2008): 335-
347. MLA International Bibliography. EBSCO. Web. 18 Oct. 2009.

Grigger, Cody. “Next Stop--Paradise: An Analysis of Setting in The Awakening.”

Domestic Goddesses. Ed. Kim Wells. Online. 14 October 2009
<http://www.womenwriters.net/domesticgoddess/pdf/griggers.pdf>

Harwarth, Irene. Maline, Mindi. DeBra, Elizabeth. “Women's Colleges in the United
States: History, Issues, and Challenges” 22 0ctober 2009
<http://www.ed.gov/offices/OERI/PLLI/webreprt.html>

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Harper, Winifred. “The New Womanhood” 11 October 2009
<http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage>

Howard, Jane. “Kate Chopin: A Woman Far Ahead of her Time“ 18 October 2009
<http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/eng384/Kate_c.htm>

KateChopin.org: The Official Site of Kate Chopin. 10 October 2009

<http://www.katechopin.org/>

Kleinberg, Jay. “Women in American Society 1820-1920.” BAAS Pamphlet 20 (1990).

10 September 2009
< http://www.baas.ac.uk/>

Smith, Nicole. “Gender and Social Critique of Victorian Society in The Awakening by
Kate Chopin.” 26 October 2009
<http://www.articlemyriad.com/55.htm>

Spanckeren Von, Kathryn. “The Rise of Realism: 1860-1914.” Outline of American

Literature. 15 August 2009
<http://www.america.gov/media/pdf/books/outline_us_lit.pdf#popup>

Sprinkle, Russ. “Kate Chopin´s The Awakening: A Critical Reception” 29 October 2009
<http://www.womenwriters.net/domesticgoddess/sprinkle.htm>

Streater, Kathleen M. “Adele Ratignolle: Kate Chopin's Feminist at Home in The

Awakening.” Midwest Quarterly: A Journal of Contemporary Thought 48.3 (2007):
406-416. MLA International Bibliography. EBSCO. Web. 18 Oct. 2009.

“The Best Southern Novels of All Time” 6 October 2009

<http://www.oxfordamerican.org/articles/2009/aug/27/best-southern-novels-all-time/>

“The Cult of Domesticity and True Womanhood” 27 September 2009

<http://www.library.csi.cuny.edu/dept/history/lavender/386/truewoman.html>

63
“The New Woman” 4 September 2009
<http://www.library.csi.cuny.edu/dept/history/lavender/386/newwoman.html>

“The New Woman” 4 September 2009

<http://ehistory.osu.edu/osu/mmh/clash/NewWoman/newwomen-page1.htm>

“Vogue.” Bookrags.org. 5 December 2009

<http://www.bookrags.com/research/vogue-sjpc-05/>

Volo, James M. Volo, Dorothy Denneen: “Family life in 19th-century America” 15

October 2009
<http://books.google.cz/books>

“WHO Europe - Suicide Prevention” World Health Organization. 1 November 2009

<http://www.euro.who.int/document/MNH/ebrief07.pdf>

Wikipedia.org: Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia. 16 September 2009

<http://en.wikipedia.org>

“Women's History in America” 8 September 2009

<http://www.wic.org/misc/history.htm>

Wyatt, Neal. “Exploring Kate Chopin's The Awakening.” 14 Sepember 2009

<http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/eng384/awake.htm>

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List of Appendices

Appendix 1: The Awakening Cover

KateChopin.org: The Official Site of Kate Chopin. 10 October 2009
<http://www. http://www.katechopin.org/the-awakening.shtml/>

Appendix 2: The Awakening Covers

KateChopin.org: The Official Site of Kate Chopin. 10 October 2009
<http://www. http://www.katechopin.org/the-awakening.shtml/>

Appendix 3: Kate Chopin's Portrait

Wikipedia.org
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kate_Chopin.jpg#filelinks

Appendix 4: Kate Chopin's Timeline

“About Kate Chopin” 29 August 2009
<http://www.underthesun.cc/Classics/Chopin>

65
Appendices

Appendix 1: The Awakening Cover

66
Appendix 2: The Awakening Covers

67
Appendix 3: Kate Chopin's Portrait

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Appendix 4: Kate Chopin's Timeline

02/08/1851 Kate Chopin is born to Thomas O`Flaherty amd Eliza Faris

1855 Kate`s father dies in rail accident and Kate begins school at the Academy of
Sacred Heart in St. Louis

1863 Kate`s great-grandmother, Victoire Verdon Charleville, dies. Kate`s half-brother,

George O`Flaherty, dies of typhoid fever

1868 Kate graduates from the Academy of the Sacred Heart

06/09/1870 Kate marries Oscar Chopin in St. Louis. Their honeymoon in Europe is cut
short by the outbreak of the Fanco-prussian War. The couple moves to New Orleans in
October.

05/22/1871 Jean Chopin, Kate`s first of six children is born.

1873 Oscar Chopin Jr. is born

1874 The Chopins move to the Garden District of New Orleans.

1879 Oscar`s cotton business fails, and the Chopins move to Cloutierville, Louisiana.
Lelia Chopin is born.

1882 Kate`s husband dies of malaria.

1884 Kate moves back to St. Louis.

1885 Eliza O`Flaherty, Kates mother dies.

1888 Kate writes her first poem, If It Might Be, and begins the story Euphraisie

1889 If It Might Be is published in America. Two stories, Wiser than a God and A Point
at Issue published in the Post-dispatch.

1890 Kate`s first novel, At Fault is published privately.

1891 Kate unsuccessfully submits the novel Young dr. Gosse to several publishers and
later destroys the manuscript.

1893 Desiree`s Baby published in Vogue.

1894 Bayou Folk is published. Kate writes Story of an Hour.

1895 Athenaise is written

1896 Anthenaise is published.

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1897 A Night in Acadie is published. Kate begins to work on The Awakening in June.

1898 Kate completes The Awakening in January.

1899 The Awakening is published with scathing reviews.

1900 Kate writes The Gentleman from New Orleans and is listed in the first edition of
Who`s Who in USA.

08/18/1904 Kate visits the Louisiana Purchase Exposition where she suffers a stroke.

08/22/1904 Kate Chopin dies after having a stroke.

70