Living as children, things appear wonderful. Life is grand and fantasies gallop in the wild pastures of young, freshly sprung minds. Problems are few, cares are whimsical and dreams soar high above the playing fields of man. Yet, as time progresses, people, environments and life experiences met with along the path of adulthood, open the eyes of the young to the realities existing in the world in which they live. And the choice of either embracing or rebelling against life’s trying demands, inevitable in every man’s life, molds a person into the individual they ultimately become, thus leading to either glory or defeat. In Kate Chopin’s 1899 controversial coming of age novel, The Awakening, the issue of a woman finding liberation from the traditional expectations of women held by current social norms, poses as a key dilemma for novel protagonist, Edna Pontellier. As novel critic Emily Toth states, Chopin focuses her writing on Edna’s “pursuit of solitude [and] independence” (114). Chopin highlights this want for solitude and independence in creating a new Edna who dares to escape from the “outward existence which conforms to the inward life which questions” (14). However, as Edna embraces the social liberty she longs to possess, she opens herself to an inner awakening, thus leading her from a woman of marital discontent to a woman of social discontent. Unwilling to endure the obstacles set before her and her state of life among both lifestyles, a hunger for solitude envelopes her spirit, leading her to a premature decay of personhood. Through nature and personal relationships, Chopin educes the defeat of Edna after she recognizes who she is and what life is and that the two cannot merge without tragic consequences.
In defining a coming-of-age novel, one may best describe it as a novel where a protagonist gains insight into life’s difficult realities, leading the character from naïvete to maturity, to a greater understanding of self and circumstance (Letham). Edna Pontellier, a young twenty-nine year old mother, fits this description, as she peels back the curtains from the social norms of society and unconsciously admits that her marriage leaves her with “an indescribable oppression”(8), thus making her want for happiness. As she subtly considers the unhappiness that her marriage offers her, due to the fact that she is not the “mother-woman […] who idolize[s] [her] children and worship[s] [her] husband” (9), she looks for diversions from these womanly paradigms, ultimately channeling her towards darker despondencies and seclusion from society.
In developing the awakening, Chopin first uses nature to engender the growth of Edna’s want for liberation. The ocean is particularly important in this regard. Commentator John May, in his article “Local Color in The Awakening”, states that the sea presides over the dawn of Edna’s awakening as it does over the night of her fate” (213). The sea introduces and concludes the time in which Edna comes to know the inner person she never knew existed within herself. Comparing the ocean to a memory Edna had as a girl in Kentucky, she describes “a meadow that seemed as big as the ocean […] she threw out her arms as if swimming when she walked, beating the tall grass as one strikes water [… feeling] as if [she] could walk on forever without coming to the end of it” (17). Edna later comments to her companion , Adele Ratignolle, that “sometimes I feel this summer as if I were walking through the green meadow again; idly aimlessly, unthinking and unguided.” (17). The crossing of thresholds for Edna is apparent from this exchange had between she and Adele. After swimming at sea for the first time, Edna experiences something of what admirer, Robert Lebrun , calls the “semi-celestial” (29) resulting in the spanning of her budding wings into a world foreign to anything she has ever known before, and wishes all the more to scale.
Using parallel characters, Chopin develops Edna’s realization of her diverse nature leading to her seclusion from society. The homely and socially disagreeable musician, Mademoiselle Reisz, contrasts Edna by her singular individuality, alien among Edna’s sphere of existence, thus ironically becoming a major influence regarding Edna’s decision to defect from traditional societal living. Being a single woman unattached to man or children, Edna “not a woman given to confidences”(14), trusts herself to Mlle. Reisz regarding her secret love for Robert Lebrun. Though not disapproving her affections, Mlle. Reisz warns Edna that however much she may want to “soar above the level plain of tradition and prejudice, [she] must have strong wings” (79) in order to fly against such heavy currents. While supporting Edna’s rebellion from local culture and gender expectancies, Mlle. Reisz imprudently holds up the illusory dream that Edna can live in a world diametrically opposed to what is honestly obtainable, which ultimately crashes down upon Edna causing her progressive withdrawal from society and end in suicide.
Along with Mlle. Reisz, Chopin utilizes Adele Ratignolle in influencing Edna. Adele is typified as the Creole “mother-woman” who loves both her children and her husband, consenting to love and do most anything to please them. Edna loves her; her beauty, her charm and the way she allows her to let down her guard. Learning to relax her soul among such a matronly influences, Edna, “ intoxicated with the sound of [Adele’s] own voice and the unaccustomed taste of candor” becomes inebriated “like wine, or like a first breath of freedom”(19) which she soon follows, though to extremes. Upon admitting that she is a mother whose children’s “absence was a sort of relief”(19) rather than a joy as it was for Adele, she seeks to live a according to her own fashion. And Adele, detecting this unorthodox spirit within her and knowing of Robert Lebrun’s affection for her, last tells her to “think of the children […to] remember them!”(104). With Adele’s faithful motherly persona shadowing over Edna, Edna reconsider the life she newly posseses, leaving her to want for escape through the taking of her own life.
Leaving her home, abandoning her children, beginning a new life as an artist in her “pigeon- house”, escaping to the suburb gardens, following a new life of adulterous living with lover Alceé Arobin, Edna swallows the wine of independence she thirsted to consume, yet never obtains the self-contentment she thought she’d acquire. Edna begins to live what writer Lewis Leary states as “love outside of marriage and passion outside of love.” In Elizabeth Elz’s essay, The Awakening and A Lost Lady: flying with broken wings and raked feathers”, Elz claims that Edna recognizes that in living she will […] merely be moving from one type of confinement to another: "To-day it is Arobin; to-morrow it will be some one else" (108).” This observation illustrates that Edna knew she couldn’t possess the life she sought. Her dreams were crumbling. Time and culture would not permit her to span the horizons of extreme moral disobedience hoped for in vain. Unwilling to carry the consequences of her state as wife and mother, being rejected by the only man she really wished to love, Robert, and seeing she cannot live with herself in the state she’s presently living, the systematic defeat of Edna was only a matter of time. Standing on the shore naked and free from all attachments, Edna chooses to live in weakness and defeat, not strong enough to endure life’s crosses brought upon by her own doing.
Through the usage of characters and nature, one can detect how Kate Chopin progressively portrays the demise of protagonist Edna Pontellier. Though finally possessing the liberty she longed for, Edna does not evolve into a woman of strength and nobility as she meets with life’s pains and denials. Rather with a “never lifting[…] despondency” (108) she becomes like the bird seen on the beach “with a broken wing beating the air above, reeling, fluttering, circling disabled down, down to the water”(108). She selfishly leaves behind all who love her, her children, her husband, her friends, thus leading to her final desire of being lost in the sea’s “maze of self-contemplation”(212) with nothing but a tragic awakening to reality to greet her at the center of the sea.
Works Cited
Elz, Elizabeth. “The Awakening and A Lost Lady: flying with broken wings and raked feathers.”
Literature Online 2003. Electronic Resources Campbell Library of Rowan University.
Glassboro, NJ. 8 Mar. 2005 < http://lion.chadwyck.com>.
Leary, Lewis. “Kate Chopin and Walk Whitman.” The Awakening: A Norton Critical Edition.
Ed. Margo Culley. 2nd ed. New York: Norton, 1994. 217-220.
Letham, Susan.“The Coming-of-Age Novel: It’s a Woman’s World.” Inspired 2 Write 2002. 8
Mar. 2005
< http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2001/04/17/60II/main286163.shtml>.
May, John R. “Local Color in The Awakening.” The Awakening: A Norton Critical Edition. Ed.
Margo Cully. 2nd ed. New York: Norton, 1994. 211-217
Toth, Emily. “A New Biographical Approach.” The Awakening: A Norton Critical Edition. Ed.
Margo Cully. 2nd ed. New York: Norton, 1994. 113-119.
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