Books, Novels & Plays: The Awakening

by Rishikesh Bhandary

'The Awakening' by Kate Chopin was written when the whole of the literary arena
was turned towards European realism. This novel gained the status of being
unconventional for its fin de siecle feminism and transcendentalism. Kate Chopin
seems to be heavily impressed by Maupassant['he had escaped tradition and
authority...own being with his own eyes.'] This novel wonderfully delineates a
woman's emancipation.

From the very beginning of the novel, Edna is depicted as a bohemian woman. Her
appearances are described as 'handsome rather than beautiful'. She is a robust
woman who does not deny her appetites[ pate, pompano, steak and so on].
Matrimonial duties had hardly any significance to her. Edna is relieved by her
children's absence which 'seemed to free her from a responsibility which she had
blindly assumed and for which fate had not fitted her'. Edna ignores all of the
Creole society's conventions yet she hardly bears any social penalty. She still
continues to enjoy the company of her friends and the loyalty of her husband.

It is described in the novel that Edna's marriage with Leoncë is a pure
accident. Although Leoncë was deeply in love with Edna, he had no interest in
her thoughts and feelings and activities. Edna is just 'fond of her husband'
with no trace of passion or excess fictitious warmth. After Edna and Robert
Lebrun return from bathing, they sit on the porch talking about 'some adventure
there in the water'. They try and fail to include Pontellier into the discussion
but this intimacy does not affect Pontellier at all.

Chopin has greatly used nature. Specially the sea has seems to have a great
impact on Edna. The sea is of material presence singing a 'mournful lullaby' to
her as she sits awake. Nature evokes sexuality in Edna through images and
details. Auto eroticism is also a chief feature of her ['some beautiful sleek
animal waking up in the sun; image of a lady stroking a cat']. She also has a
self contained quality of sexuality.

After Edna's affair with Arobin, Edna recognizes her own sexual passions. From
then on, her love for Robert becomes overpowering['we shall be everything to
each other...nothing else in the world is of any consequence']. Mademoiselle Reisz
tells Edna that an artist must possess 'the courageous soul that dares and
defies' and must have strong wings to 'soar above the level of pain of tradition
and prejudice'. It is from Mademoiselle Adele that Edna sees and can identify
her with another woman's pain. This is during Adele's childbirth. ['The heavy
odor of the chloroform...a stupor which deadened sensation'] These are all
metaphors for the real and imaginary narcotics supplied by fantasy, money and
patriarchy which have protected Edna from pains most of her life but at the same
time which also kept her from becoming an adult.

On the 29th birthday, Edna sits at the head of the table symbolising a coup
d'etat with the help of her weapons-dresses, knives and forks.[' there was
something in her attitude which suggested the regal woman, the one who rules,
who looks on and stands alone'].

The 29th birthday is also a feminine threshold [ the passage of youth to middle
age]. Here, she is in the threshold of a new life at the same time.

This novel can be regarded as a depiction of transition between homosocial and
heterosexual worlds. Although it is called 'the awakening', it hardly brings any
inward changes in her. In the beginning it is said that Edna is influenced by
Adele's candor as Edna experiences her 'first breath of freedom'. But after
Doctor Mandelet and Edna return from Adele's childbirth scene, the Doctor asks
her to tell him what has been troubling her, she replies, 'some way I don't feel
moved to speak of things that troubled me'.

Although Chopin has boldly defied all conventions of the late 19th century her
ending seems to return the character to the 19th century female literary
tradition. Drowning was viewed as a fictional punishment for female
transgression against morality. When Edna enters the sea for the last time, she
again feels the 'hum fo the bees and the musky odor of pinks filled the air.'

This novel has the most shattering effect on the 19th century ideal of
'passionlessness,' which reinforced the notion that women were the purer and the
spiritual sex.

The Awakening on the whole is a book of a woman's abandonment of her family
which has a consequence of the woman's quest for self discovery and battles with
the powerful senses and nature.