Awakening by Kate Chopin

¶ … Awakening

Kate Chopin's the Awakening is a tale of rebellion against social norms and the danger of venturing too far away from traditional conventions.

The protagonist, Edna, is married to Leonce Pontellier, a businessman from New Orleans. They have a beautiful house on Esplanade Street and are as one would say, respectable society. The novel opens on Grand Isle, just outside New Orleans, where the Pontelliers and their small children are renting a summer cottage from Madame Lebrun. Edna is a young and spirited woman from Kentucky who finds the life she is living a little too stifling for comfort. While Leonce, is quite the opposite. He apparently thrives on routine and formality, and finds little time away from his business dealings for pleasure.

Edna and Madame Lebrun's son Robert return from an afternoon of swimming and join Leonce on the porch. They try to recount a funny incident from the day, but Leonce fails to find the humor in the story and therefore is unable to share in the laughter. This first chapter sets the tone for the rest of the novel, in that it is obvious that Edna and Leonce are not particularly compatible companions. Edna appears to enjoy the beach, while Leonce seems irritated and out of his element. He prefers business to pleasure, and would rather play billiards at the hotel than spend the evening in the company of his wife and the other guests. He gives the impression that he could not care less what his wife does or with whom. When Edna retires for the night, Leonce still has not returned from the hotel. However, when he does return, he wakes her up to relate his evening to her, and when she shows little interest, he becomes angry and goes to check on their sons and then returns to the room to scold her for not being a good mother. Edna sits in the rocker outside and weeps, "She could not have told why she was crying. Such experiences as the foregoing were not uncommon in her married life" (Chopin pp).

"In short," Chopin writes, "Mrs. Pontellier was not a mother-woman" (Chopin pp). Her children did not come running to her for protection or comfort. She was as uneasy and dissatisfied in her role as a mother as she was as Leonce's wife. As she spent more time with Madame Lebrun, Robert and the other Creoles on Grand Isle, she observed how casual they were about discussing personal issues, even sexual issues. "A certain light was begging to dawn dimly within her, the light which, showing the way, forbids it" (Chopin pp). Edna began to experience feelings she had never dreamed, she "was beginning 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" (Chopin pp).

What Edna experienced that summer was an awakening of her soul, the sensual spirit that lies within all, but only awakens for a few. It was as if the sounds of the ocean and the colors of the summer nurtured her birth into an existence that made her feel more alive, more her true self than she had ever imagined.

When the Pontelliers returned to their house on Esplanade Street, Edna refused to accept visitors, as was the social custom. She decides to become an artist, and takes up painting. She admires Mademoiselle Reisz, an unmarried woman who shuns social convention and behaves and lives as she chooses.

Edna moved out of the house on Esplanade Street and takes a small place near Mademoiselle Reisz. Perhaps because Robert is away and she had no outlet for her emotions, or perhaps simply because she desired him at the moment, Edna takes a lover, Arobin. Edna began to live a sort of bohemian lifestyle, believing herself to be a free woman who could sleep with anyone she fancied, after all, she was an independent woman, with her own money from the sale of her artwork and her gambling wins.

When Robert returns to New Orleans, he meets with Edna and they confess their love for one another. Then Edna is called away, but Robert promises to wait at her house until she returns, however when she gets back she finds a note that says, "I love you. Good-by - because I love you" (Chopin pp).