How would you describe Edna Pontelier’s connection to reality, to the tangible world and social interactions around her? How would you characterize her emotional reactions? Is there a particular passage that speaks to your understanding of Edna’s way of seeing the world as it exists outside herself?
7 thoughts on “The Awakening”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
I agree with Alexander’s characterization of Edna and her connectedness with reality. Edna’s disconnect from reality and from herself in the beginning of the book is in stark contrast to how she truly relates to herself and the evolution of her character that is evident by the end as she declares her independence from Mr. Pontellier. At the beginning of the book, Edna is defined by the norms with which 19th Century women were characterized—these women were expected to be nothing greater than the property of their husbands. Any sort of feeling or action that defied this norm made these women seem unwell to to their husbands or to society and they were subsequently treated as mental. Perhaps though, these women, like Edna, were yearning fo passion and excitement that was not present in their “convenient” marriages.
Though Edna yearns for the passion and emotion she experiences in her relationship with Robert, when he comes back for her, she declares independence for herself by stating: “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.” This passage evidences Edna’s desire to become her own person and assume her own identity separate from that of her marriage and interestingly from her passion as well. The fact that she is able to do this signifies, in my opinion, that Edna must be the most in touch with reality for she is able to ground herself in the face of intense emotion and passion.
My understanding of Edna is twofold. As mentioned by Alexander, she is in some ways the most in touch with reality. She comes to realize that there is ‘no reason’ for her to abide by her husband’s demands, and in a sense no real reason for her to follow any social norms and commit herself to anything she does not enjoy. She gives up calling on guests, moves to the smaller house and commits herself to her painting. While she never seems to explicitly outline her understanding of social expectations and the oppression behind them, on a certain level she understands how arbitrary they are. However, it is also hard to see her as entirely in touch with reality, because she makes certain choices that may seem a little ‘uncomfortable’ for the reader – in particular her relationship with her sons. She is content with living apart from her sons while her husband is in New York, which defines her character beyond just being opposed to oppressive norms. She seems to become all consumed with her own feelings and desires, which made it harder for me to like her. However, that may have been Chopin’s intentions as we define her primary responsibilities as her role as a mother (thereby putting ourselves with Mr. Pontellier and Adéle).
I found the passage in Chapter 9, in which Edna listens to Mademoiselle Reisz play the piano and is incredibly affected emotionally by the music, particularly striking as well as enlightening with relation to how she interacts with the world around her. I also want to call attention to Chloe and Caroline’s posts – because I think their discussion of Edna’s fascination with the sea and imagery comes into play strongly here. In my selected pages, Edna prefaces the performance from Mme Reisz by explaining her love for music – describing a piece she has heard before that she has self-titled “Solitude.” While listening, Edna evokes imagery of a man standing on a rock by the sea, staring out at a bird flying away from him. Other songs evoke other “pictures” for her, she explains – but I think it is particularly fascinating that the correlation between the sea and solitude exists here. In agreement with Chloe and Caroline, the sea directly relates to Edna’s sense of self. It represents an interesting concept of solitude equalling freedom – of the pursuit of the unknown as an escape from the entrapment of the system as it exists. Edna views the world around her (outside of her imaginings) as a product of the system, and that’s why she cannot understand it nor fit into it. Edna’s relationship to the tangible world is detached. However, at the same time, she is able to relate to the “world” more deeply through her self-containment. During Mme Reisz’s performance, for example, Edna experiences music as a fully immersive emotional experience for the first time. Instead of pictures, she displays outward reactions to which Mme Reisz responds, “You are the only one worth playing for.” Through images and intangible art, Edna can generate understanding. However, she cannot make others understand the inner workings of her knowledge because the images and experiences are trapped inside her mind. Only an artist (Mme Reisz) can understand the deep emotional connection with the world that Edna can create from the experience of art.
At the end of chapter 6 is the line: “The voice of the sea is seductive; never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander for a spell in the abysses of solitude; to lose itself in mazes of inward contemplation” (13). This same line is repeated at the end of the novella, only this time, the sentence ends with: “inviting the soul to wander in abysses of solitude” (115). The line demonstrates the shift in Edna’s character that has taken place throughout the story: first, she is invited to wander “for a spell”, but by the end, she is simply invited to wander in the abysses—both the literal sense, by her drowning, and the metaphorical, by her complete severance of all that connects her inner sense of self to her external world. But these references to the sea are not the only moments of clarity that Edna experiences. As Caroline mentioned, one of the profoundest moments of her awakening comes with Edna’s newfound ability to swim. Chopin writes that “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” (27). Before, the sea—which represents her sense of self—was something she feared and yet was something that had always been present in her life. Even as a little girl, an abstract idea of the sea and its calling is present, as she describes to Mrs. Ratignolle when speaking about the field of grass in Kentucky. (And, interestingly enough, that same image of the grass comes full circle, reappearing as one of the final images she recalls before drowning.) As an adult, she is drawn to the sea, traversing it and remembering its allure until she finally succumbs to it, just as she succumbs to the reality that she cannot reconcile her desire to be free with the world in which she lives.
I would argue that Edna Pontellier is actually the character that is the most in touch with reality. She is the only character that really questions societies norms, such as her job to be a homemaker, devout wife, and mother, and kind of pushes back against that social structure. Of course, from a 19th Century perspective, she would appear to be totally disconnected with the world, since she does not care about anyone but herself.
With the idea that Edna is actually very in-touch with reality, her emotional reactions are justified. She yearns for Robert and Alcee, because she wants a relationship based on her perception of love, where she feels like her significant other actually cares about her. Since she does not view her relationship with Mr. Pontellier, and her relationship to her kids, in this way, she does not mind disconnecting herself completely for them. I again think that this emotional decision is completely justified, because this is a relationship that she was somewhat unwillingly forced into by society.
A good passage describing Edna’s view of seeing herself, is on page 46 when the narrator says “Robert’s going had some way taken the brightness, the color, the meaning out of everything. The conditions of her life were in no way changed, but her whole existence was dulled, like a faded garment which seems to be no longer worth wearing”.
Edna’s conversation with Robert after her nap at Madame Antoine’s house seem to capture her shifting image and attitude toward the world around her. She feels as though “the whole island seems change. A new race of beings must have sprung up, leaving only me and you as past relics” (37). Robert replied, stating the she had been asleep for a hundred years. I found this exchange particularly interesting because many of Edna’s desires and actions throughout the novel are comprehensible to a 21st century western society. I believe the tragic ending is only a result of her inability to achieve real independence or freedom (as a result of constricting social conventions and laws). Madame Reisz and Victor Lebrun stand out as the only characters who have seemed to be either living freely or have broken away from certain societal conventions (in differing ways). However, their independence isn’t tangible to Edna largely due to her marriage and her children.
Over the course of the book, we see the gap between Edna and the rest of the tangible, social world gradually widening. As Edna begins, “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,” she pulls away from the rest of the world (13). Part of this is her process of self-discovery, of recognizing that she can function as her own, independent, self-contained being, as when she finally gets the hang of swimming and swims off by herself. Part of it is protective to ensure that she “never sacrife[s] herself for her children, or for any one,” as she tells Madame Ratignolle (48). The more in tune Edna becomes with her immaterial inner self, the further she distances herself from the material world – she gives up many of her social connections and eventually moves to the “pigeon-house”, a smaller and therefore less materialistic home. A huge part of this awakening process to her inner self is Edna’s connection with music, with its intangible sounds, and the intangible emotional effects it has on her. At the very beginning of the book, as Edna listens to Mademoiselle Reisz play the piano Edna’s reaction is described, “She saw no pictures of solitude, of hope, of longing, or of despair. But the very passions themselves were aroused within her soul, swaying it, lashing it, as the waves daily beat upon her splendid body. She trembled, she was choking, and the tears blinded her,” (26). The music stimulates Edna’s inner self. Interestingly, however, Edna herself is a painter, she has picked a more tangible art form. The more Edna recognizes and focuses on her internal self, the better her painting becomes – an interesting blend of both immaterial and material. In addition, Edna is never able to accurately paint Madame Ratignolle’s portrait, an expression of Edna’s own inability to understand the attraction of the traditional female role in the domestic sphere.