Awakening Leonce Were You Ever

¶ … Awakening

Leonce

Were you ever happy? How could I have misread you so easily?

I could have sworn you were happy once, Edna.

When we were young,

When I first met you,

Surely you loved me then?

You were so beautiful!

How could someone as beautiful

As you be unhappy

With me?

Everything in my life I have worked hard for -- my business,

My position, society, reputation, but most of all

You. You were so hard to win, to capture.

Everything I worked for I did for You. Perfect. Perfect house, wife, mother,

You were the perfect woman, I, the perfect husband.

We were the perfect match, like a portrait, a picture

Of a still life. Together serene, nothing could go wrong

Beneath the surface.

A even loved you enough to give you your freedom,

Told myself that like a tame animal set free

You would come back. To me.

Even the doctor said it was natural

For a bird in a cage to beat its wings at the bars,

Even though it would have no idea, the bird knows,

How to survive in the wild. So I opened the door.

Sure that the bird would not fly away.

What were you seeking?

So far away from me?

What lay beneath the surface?

Of the placid lake of your face?

What tempted you to go swimming?

So far ashore, so far away,

From the happy home, safe home

Ashore that we created,

Where turbulent waves

Could never touch us?

Reflection wanted to write this poem about Leonce because I believe he is in many ways a misunderstood character in the Awakening. It is easy to demonize the husband of Kate Chopin's novel, but Leonce does not always behave badly. He tries to show his love for Edna in the only ways that he knows how to do so. Although he may be clumsy at times, he is in many ways just as much a victim of society as Edna. He was taught to expect certain things of a wife, and when Edna's temperament does not allow her to fulfill these functions, it is only natural for him to be confused. He tries to make her happy by giving her material things, and listening to the experts, like the doctor, who give him instructions as to how to make his wife feel content, but no one can give him good answers. Also, the world around him is filled with women like Adele Ratignolle, who seem to find the type of life Leonce gives Edna to be satisfactory.