Awakening: Edna Pontellier Edna Pontellier

¶ … Awakening: Edna Pontellier

Edna Pontellier in Kate Chopin's the Awakening is an archetypical unconventional woman that appears in so many other works of Chopin's. Edna symbolizes a caged woman who finds freedom and holds on to it for dear life. But is she a unique figure? In the story, she might be but not in Chopin's works. Chopin's women are usually characterized by a sincere desire to seek their own identity and they want freedom badly. Most of them are suffering in institutionalized marriages and seek freedom with desperation. They are initially unaware of their own desire to be free and independent but when a chance arises, they recognize and acknowledge their need. This can result in different scenarios depending on woman's actions. Edna is more unconventional than the rest because she is married and has children but this doesn't stop her from having an affair that could satisfy her sexual hunger.

In the beginning, we find Edna is a marriage of convenience that has completely turned her into a lifeless person. She doesn't enjoy life and doesn't look forward to another day. Everything looks the same and she is more or less a dead person from within. Her husband is sometimes worried about her behavior and chides her on Edna's seemingly careless attitude towards her children. "Such experiences as the foregoing were not uncommon in her married life. They seemed never before to have weighed much against the abundance of her husband's kindness..." (p.8) Initially she doesn't pay attention but gradually it starts making her feeling greatly oppressed and caged.

An indescribable oppression, which seemed to generate in some unfamiliar part of her consciousness, filled her whole being with a vague anguish. It was like a shadow, like a mist passing across her soul's summer day. It was strange and unfamiliar; it was a mood." (p. 8)

Edna's awareness of her own desire to be happy and free comes at a cost. She will have to sacrifice her marriage and her children. But the urge to be happy and the desire to embrace the unknown is so strong that it overwhelms her completely. She realizes that she was never meant to be a mother-woman.

In short, Mrs. Pontellier was not a mother-woman. The mother women seemed to prevail that summer at Grand Isle. It was easy to know them, fluttering about with extended, protecting wings when any harm, real or imaginary, threatened their precious brood." (p.10)

This was a strong realization and one that shifted Edna's focus from her marriage, husband and her children to herself. She started looking inwards to understand herself and to find her place in the world. Is she meant to be a mother and wife alone? Doesn't she have some needs that must be fulfilled? Shouldn't she be allowed to live a life on her own terms? These questions originated in her mind and disturbed her. But they also helped her become more aware of her needs and what she really wanted.

Mrs. Pontellier 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. This may seem like a ponderous weight of wisdom to descend upon the soul of a young woman of twenty-eight -- perhaps more wisdom than the Holy Ghost is usually pleased to vouchsafe to any woman." (p. 16)

There are two other important female characters in the story namely Mademoiselle Reisz and Madame Lebrun. They are women who are different from Edna but offer an insight into the ways women can think. Reisz is a woman that Edna doesn't get along with but admires all the same. She likes the fact that Reisz can play piano, enjoys music and understands art- all the things that Edna herself loved. But Reisz was a woman who could really be a straight shooter at times. She would cause great discomfort to Edna and make her feel unhappy. "Edna looked down at Mademoiselle Reisz and wondered how she could have listened to her venom so long. For some reason she felt depressed, almost unhappy." (p. 55)