The Awakening Essay, Research Paper

The novel, The Awakening, by Kate Chopin is set in the late nineteenth century, in

Louisiana. This is a place and time for women to submit themselves to the wants and

needs of husbands and families. The protagonist, Edna Pontellier, isn t content with being

a mother-woman, one of the ordinary, traditional women who, “…idolized their children,

worshipped their husbands, and esteemed it to a holy privilege to efface themselves as

individuals and grow wings as ministering angels”( Chopin 51). Edna wanted more, and

as there were very few women at this time leading the way to break these sorts of glass

ceilings, Edna looked for women within her life to model herself after.

Adele Ratignolle and Mademoiselle Reisz, two women who also engage in art,

serve as Edna Pontellier s options, they represent what society views as the suitable and

unsuitable woman figures. Mademoiselle Ratignolle is the ideal Grand Isle woman, a

home-loving mother and a good wife, and Mademoiselle Reisz as the old, unmarried,

childless, musician who devoted her life to music, rather than a man. Feeling that neither

of their lifestyles were suitable and lacking the ability to create a model of her own, Edna

in the closing of The Awakening commits suicide by walking into the ocean. Perhaps if

there had been a more well rounded woman figure in Edna s life, she wouldn t have felt

the life she craved was, …an undefined, unexpressed, ineffable life that she cannot

articulate or shape (Spangler). In witnessing other women achieve the articulation of a

complexly spirited life, she may have found a new life easier to attain.

Adele serves as the perfect “mother-woman” in The Awakening, being both

married and pregnant, but Edna does not follow Adele s footsteps. For Edna, Adele

appears unable to perceive herself as an individual human being. She possesses no sense of

herself beyond her role as wife and mother, and therefore Adele exists only in relation to

her family, not in relation to herself or the world. Edna respects art, but does not respect

Adele s reasoning for playing the piano, 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 (Chopin 69). Regardless of whether Adele actually

feels this way about her art or whether she only uses it to rationalize, it is still a maternal

project in Edna s eyes that will only thrust her further into the role she rejects, Women s

art, as Adele presents it, is social, pleasant, and undemanding. It does not conflict with

her duties as a wife and mother (Showalter 74). Edna being against the mother-woman

image is obviously turned off by this notion.

A woman who Edna does believe to play the piano for the right reasons is

Mademoiselle Reisz, the other female model. Despite Reisz s eccentricities, Edna is

completely mesmerized by her ability to live and to play, maybe her ability to live to play.

When the characters are still vacationing at Grande Isle nearer to the opening of the book,

Edna wishes to hear Mademoiselle Reisz play and Robert calls on her. After explaining

that Edna would often listen to Reisz practice as she imagined corresponding stories to

each song, it is explained that on this particular day, listening to Reisz play this particular

song, Edna had an awakening reaction, It was not the first time she had heard an artist

play the piano. Perhaps it was the first time she was ready, perhaps the first time her being

was ready to take an impress of the abiding truth (71). Because Reisz s music evoked

this out pouring of feelings in Edna, there is a special bond between the two women.

This bond grows and strengthens throughout the course of their relationship.

Edna, although sometimes confused by her conversations with Reisz, also finds

strength. She explains to Alcee Arobin how Reisz sometimes makes her feel, She says

queer things sometimes in a bantering way that you don t notice at the time and you find

yourself thinking about afterward (Chopin 138). She is referring to her conversation with

Reisz just prior to her meeting Arobin, but her statement to applies to all of her meetings

with Reisz. Reisz explains to Edna such things as the strength it takes to be an artist, the

strength it takes to be a successful person, Reisz postulates both the determinism of

nature and existential freedom when she tells Edna that to be an artist requires, absolute

gifts and a soul that dares and defies (Hollister 91). Edna is so intrigued by Reisz s

ability to project such a specific idea of how to achieve not only because it is a first for

Edna but also because Reisz sometimes come off more mysterious as she often uses

metaphors.

Mademoiselle Reisz s the opposite of a mother-woman . Although Reisz typifies

an individual woman who can be likened to Edna through the love of art, there are also

many aspects of her model that Edna does not wish to imitate. Reisz is very much disliked

by the members of Edna s society. Alcee Arobin, a friend of Edna s, says upon being

asked whether or not he is familiar with Reisz, I ve heard she s partially demented…I m

told she s extremely disagreeable and unpleasant (Chopin 138). Edna, not being an

outcast can not always identify with Reisz on all of the necessary levels, Even Edna

occasionally perceives Mademoiselle Reisz s awkwardness as a kind of deformity, and is

sometimes offended by the old woman s candor and is not sure whether she likes

her (Showalter 75). The fact is that Edna is interested in having a social life and being

well liked. After all, even towards the end of her awakening, Edna still finds it necessary

to have a beautiful dinner party upon moving out into the pigeon house.

So even though Edna is drawn towards Reisz she is drawn away as well. Edna s

dinner party makes it known that being socially acceptable is still a focus for her. Further

she goes on to explain how she wants everything perfect, stressing the physical beauty of

the party s appearance. A shining example of someone who portrays literal, physical

beauty is Adele Ratignolle. Adele as, the embodiment of grace and charm (Chopin 51).

As we understand it, Edna is not envious per se, but also holds beauty, womanly charm,

and social ability in high regards. For example, Edna finds Reisz s use of French in

speaking to Adele s Husband at the dinner party to be rude, a mistake Adele presumably

would have not committed.

Along with this need Edna has for platonic social relations, obviously comes along

the need for love. Mademoislle Reisz has in abundance the autonomy that Adele

completely lacks. But Reisz s life lacks love, while Adele abounds in it. Mademoiselle

Reisz s loneliness makes clear that an adequate life cannot build altogether upon

autonomy. Although she has a secure sense of her own individuality , her life lacks love,

friendship, or warmth. It is clear throughout the novel that Edna loves her children, loves

Robert, and even at times still loves Leonce, her husband. It can even be said that she

loves Mademoiselle Reisz and Adele. So even though, Reisz is the critical head, more

developed on her masculine side than other women in the novel (Hollister 92), and that is

what Edna identifies with, there is still a very feminine, even mother-woman set of idea

imbedded in her head, identifying her again with Adele Ratignolle.

In the final scene of The Awakening, Edna Pontellier walks into the ocean

committing suicide. Edna was unable to identify with either of the female models enough

to go on living. She wasn t strong enough as an individual to create her own model.

Mademoiselle Reisz and Adele Ratignolle suggest different endings to Edna s life story

had she not chose death as a way out. Modeling herself after Adele would make Edna

regress, she was way beyond the role Adele plays. At the same time choosing

Mademoiselle Reisz s path is too much n the opposite direction.. Edna wasn t capable of

leading this life as she already had a family and couldn t well just rid herself of them, as

well as her need for social warmth, Adele s story suggests that Edna will give up her

rebellion, return to her marriage, have another baby, and by degrees learn to appreciate,

love and even desire her husband…Mademioselle Reisz s story suggests that Edna will

lose her beauty, her youth, her husband, and children- everything in short but her art and

her pride (Showalter 76). Edna s decision to take her plunge was based on the probably

outcome of the life she would have modeled after one of the two women.

Perhaps today it sounds ridiculous that a woman would kill herself after exploring

the existences of only two women similar to her. Today a person could probably find a

successful model fitting their own desires almost perfectly. In the nineteenth century this

wasn t the case. Women rarely attempted to spread their wings and embrace and kind of

individualism, especially in the south. As we see, many women who did in fact aim for

this ended up social outcasts like Mademoiselle Reisz. Edna had no one to look at, she

had no idol to aspire to become like. Maybe today we take for granted all of the women

who have achieved greatness and led the way for others. Maybe we take too much credit

for our own achievements forgetting how important these other people were along the

way. Without anyone there to prove that Edna was striving for something attainable, there

was nothing for her to do but end her life. If Edna had been born in a different time and

had been faced with the same situation, it would have been a different story.

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Hollister, Michael. Chopin s The Awakening. The Explicator 51.1 (1993) : 90-92

Showalter, Elaine. Sister s Choice: Tradition and change in American Women s Writing.

Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991.

Spangler, George. Ways of Interpreting Edna s Suicide. Kate Chopin Study Text

Online. Neal Wyatt, 1993.