The Awakening
The Awakening, novel by Kate Chopin, published in 1899. Originally titled A Solitary Soul, the novel depicts a young mother’s struggle to achieve sexual and personal emancipation in the oppressive environment of the postbellum American South. When it was first published, it was widely condemned for its portrayal of sexuality and marital infidelity. Today it is considered a landmark work of early feminist fiction.
Plot summary
The Awakening opens on an island in Grand Isle, Louisiana, where 28-year-old Edna Pontellier is vacationing with her Creole husband, Léonce, and their two children, Etienne and Raoul. Léonce works during the week, leaving Edna to look after the children. Edna, however, spends most of her time with Madame Adèle Ratignolle, a fellow vacationer on the island. Charming, elegant, and subservient, Madame Ratignolle is the ideal “mother-woman.” Her identity is almost entirely subsumed by her familial role: she exists as if only to meet the needs and wants of her family. Ironically, it is Madame Ratignolle who catalyzes Edna’s “awakening.” Unlike Edna, Madame Ratignolle grew up around Creole women, who taught her to discuss and express her emotions freely. Her openness emboldens Edna, ultimately inspiring her to let go of her reservations.
Edna’s process of “awakening” is accelerated by Robert Lebrun, an attractive, charismatic young man whom Edna befriends on the island. At first, their relationship is innocent. They bathe and lounge together, exchanging jokes and stories (often in the company of Madame Ratignolle). The more time Edna spends with Robert, the more she resents the idea of the “mother-woman.” Through Robert, she begins to develop a sense of self apart from her social and domestic roles. As she recovers her independence, desires from her youth return. She starts painting again and recalls her past loves and infatuations. During this time, Edna is powerfully affected by music. When Mademoiselle Reisz—another vacationer on the island—plays the piano for her, she is moved to tears. That night, after weeks of unsuccessful attempts, Edna learns to swim.
By summer’s end, Edna and her husband have grown apart. Edna and Robert, on the other hand, have developed a romantic attachment. To avoid consummating their relationship, Robert decides to remove himself from the island and go to Mexico. He promises to write Edna, but she is nonetheless devastated by his departure. Not long after, the Pontelliers return to their home in New Orleans, where Edna, relinquishing her duties as a housewife, continues to develop her painting skills. She maintains her friendships with Madame Ratignolle and Mademoiselle Reisz, visiting the latter especially often. Mademoiselle Reisz sometimes receives letters from Robert, which she allows Edna to read. Mademoiselle Reisz suggests that Robert is in love with Edna; she observes that many of his letters are about her. While Mademoiselle Reisz encourages Edna to admit and perhaps even act upon her feelings for Robert, Edna’s worried husband seeks the help of Dr. Mandelet, a longtime family friend. Dr. Mandelet suspects Edna’s transformation is the result of an affair, but he does not voice his concern to Léonce. Instead, he tells him to let Edna’s behaviour run its course.
Léonce heeds the doctor’s orders. When he leaves for an extended business trip, his mother collects Etienne and Raoul, leaving Edna at home alone. Edna finds peace in the absence of her husband and children. Shortly after they leave, she decides to move out of their family home and into a nearby rental house, which she endearingly calls the “pigeon house.” Seeking financial independence, she begins selling her paintings. She also initiates an affair with the town womanizer, Alcée Arobin. Although she is sexually attracted to him, Edna has no romantic feelings for Arobin. She seems to use him as a stand-in for Robert, who, as far as she knows, is still in Mexico.
One afternoon, while waiting for Mademoiselle Reisz to return home, Edna encounters Robert. The meeting is awkward, and Edna wonders aloud why Robert did not seek her out upon his return. The tension between them is sustained until Robert visits the “pigeon house.” As Edna observes, “all the softness came back.” The tension is renewed after Robert takes his leave. The next time Robert visits the pigeon house, Edna, at last, kisses him, and he responds in kind. Although he admits he loves her, Robert insists he cannot be with Edna because she is a married woman and, as such, belongs to Léonce. Edna protests, arguing that she is not her husband’s property. Before Robert can respond, they are interrupted by Madame Ratignolle’s servant, who informs them that Madame Ratignolle “has taken sick.” As she leaves to tend to her friend, Edna asks Robert to wait for her.
When Edna comes home, Robert is gone. In his place is a note that reads, “I love you. Good-by—because I love you.” Edna does not sleep that night. Instead, she stays awake thinking about her children and her relationships. She realizes:
There was no one thing in the world that she desired. There was no human being whom she wanted near her except Robert; and she even realized that the day would come when he, too, and the thought of him would melt out of her existence, leaving her alone.
Shortly thereafter, Edna returns to Grand Isle. After greeting Robert’s brother, she goes to the beach, where she strips and wades, naked, into the water. Determined not to let anyone—including her children—possess her, Edna swims away from the shore. After a while, her limbs tire. Exhaustion overtakes her, and she drowns among the waves, finally and totally free.
Context and analysis
The Awakening has been described as a case study of 19th-century feminism. One of the central themes in the novel is that of self-ownership. Also called bodily autonomy, self-ownership was a key tenet of 19th-century feminism. It signified a woman’s right to have control over her own body and identity. So-called first-wave feminists argued that women could gain their freedom only by refusing to allow other people—namely, men—to exercise control over their bodies. They focused, in particular, on a wife’s right to refuse sexual relations with her husband. Their argument was that a woman’s service as a wife and mother entitled her to ownership of her body and, therefore, the right to refuse to have sex or be impregnated.
The heroine of The Awakening longs for this kind of bodily autonomy. She is relentless in the pursuit of authority over her own person. Edna resists objectification by her husband, who looks at her “as one looks at a valuable piece of personal property.” She challenges Robert when he suggests that she is “not free” and must be “set…free” by her husband in order for them to be together. Her response to Robert clearly borrows from the rhetoric of first-wave feminists:
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.
In the end, she keeps to the vow she made upon moving into the pigeon house: she will “never again belong to another than herself.”
Edna’s story is laden with symbolism. The sea is perhaps the most important symbol in the novel. It variously represents baptism, cleansing, and rebirth. In The Awakening, Chopin constructs the sea as a space of freedom—a space outside and away from patriarchal society. For Edna the sea serves as a source of empowerment and a place of refuge. In the beginning it entices her with its “seductive odor” and “sonorous murmur.” Its entreaties are loving but imperative:
The voice of the sea is 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. The voice of the sea speaks to the soul.
Chopin imbues the sea with maternal qualities, ultimately likening it to a womb, “enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace.” Although Edna longs for such comfort, she is uneasy in the water. Unless accompanied, she feels “a certain ungovernable dread.” Edna’s first solo swim thus marks a critical moment in her awakening. In learning to swim, Edna conquers her fears and takes control of her body. She effectively realizes her independence:
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. She grew daring and reckless, overestimating her strength. She wanted to swim far out, where no woman had swum before.
In the water, Edna is reminded of the vastness of the universe and of her position within it. As she contemplates her significance (or lack thereof), her thoughts turn to death. Weeks later, when Edna reflects on the experience, she recalls the freedom she felt in the Gulf. With Robert gone and her solitude made plain, she resolves to return to the womb of the sea. In the last scene of the novel, Edna swims into the sea, naked as she came, “and the musky odor of pinks filled the air.”
Publication and reception
Chopin began writing The Awakening in 1897. She completed the novel on January 21, 1898, and it was published by Herbert S. Stone & Company in Chicago on April 22, 1899. Chopin anticipated a warm reception for her novel. A month before its release, Book News had run a positive review praising the novel as “subtle and a brilliant kind of art.” To say that the novel was not received well is an understatement. Chopin’s portrayal of female marital infidelity shocked contemporary readers. Critics all over the United States condemned the novel as “morbid,” “unhealthy,” “not wholesome,” “vulgar,” “repellent,” and even “poison.” Edna’s character was described as “sensual and devilish” and “not good enough for heaven, [but] not wicked enough for hell.” As for Chopin herself, the Chicago Times-Herald determined “it was not necessary for a writer of so great refinement and poetic grace to enter the overworked field of sex fiction.” A few reviewers praised Chopin’s “cleverness.” The New York Times, for example, said the author “has a clever way of managing a difficult subject.” Chopin herself issued a statement responding to the negative press. The statement, which ran in the July 1899 issue of Book News, read:
Having a group of people at my disposal, I thought it might be entertaining (to myself) to throw them together and see what would happen. I never dreamed of Mrs. Pontellier making such a mess of things and working out her own damnation as she did. If I had had the slightest intimation of such a thing I would have excluded her from the company. But when I found out what she was up to, the play was half over and it was then too late.
Chopin defended herself and her novel to no avail. After its publication, the once-popular author was forced into financial crisis and literary obscurity. The Awakening went out of print for more than 50 years. When it was rediscovered in the 1950s, critics marveled at its modern sensibility. A second edition was published in 1964. Now widely read, The Awakening is critically acclaimed as an American version of Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary (1856) and a landmark feminist text.
Haley Bracken