Naturalism in Kate Chopin\'s \"The

Naturalism in Kate Chopin's "The Awakeing"

When Kate Chopin wrote the Awakening, several themes were popular in the literature. One of these was naturalism, or the belief that natural forces, such as heredity, environment and physical and emotional drives motivate people to act as they do. This book includes numerous examples on how naturalism impacts Edna Pontellier's values, thoughts and actions. More importantly, it shows what happens when one's natural inclinations conflict with an awakening of unconventional and "unnatural" desires. Although Edna can rationally negate the Victorian society's standard of the mother and wife role, she is unable to counter the instinctive hold that her role as caregiver has on her.

In Victorian times, women were primarily recognized as mothers and wives or, as in the Awakening, even possessions of their husband. In several instances, the book's characters confirm this role. For example, in an early scene, Mr. Pontellier criticizes Edna for not attending her sick child and worries that she is not a proper mother. Although these demands on women are part of the patriarchal society, they are based on the belief that women bear the children in the human species and have, or should have, an innate need to nurture and protective their children.

Edna is a complex character who has many sides to her nature. Part of her recognizes the need, in fact is inwardly driven, to be a good mother. She loves her children very much and tries to honor and love her husband for his goodness. For instance, even when she "awakens" and leaves her prison of a home behind, she does not similarly leave her connection as a mother and ever stop thinking of her children. When she visits them for a week in February, "How glad she was to see the children! She wept for very pleasure when she felt their little arms clasping her; their hard, ruddy cheeks pressed against her own glowing cheeks. She looked into their faces with hungry eyes that could not be satisfied with looking. And what stories they had to tell their mother!" (93). "It was with a wrench and a pang that Edna left her children. She carried away with her the sound of their voices and the touch of their cheeks. All along the journey homeward their presence lingered with her like the memory of a delicious song."

As a woman, Edna also has the natural instinct to be a nurse, a helper to other women. When Edna and Robert once again meet when he returns from Mexico, she declares both her love and personal guarantee that she now has the fortitude and freedom to be his lover. "Now you are here we shall love each other, my Robert," she states. "We shall be everything to each other. Nothing else in the world is of any consequence" (107). Yet, at that moment, Edna is called away to aid Adele. Once again, she has a decision: to go and fulfill her womanly mission of being a caretaker or stay away from her natural responsibility in life. She says, "I must go to my friend; but you will wait for me? No matter how late; you will wait for me, Robert?" "Don't go; don't go! Oh! Edna, stay with me," he pleaded. "Why should you go? Stay with me, stay with me." shall come back as soon as I can; I shall find you here."

One more time, she gives into her biological role. During Adele's labor pains, Edna recalls her own childbirth, an event that offered very different kinds of memories of an awakening than she has now. "Edna began to feel uneasy. She was seized with a vague dread. Her own like experiences seemed far away, unreal, and only half remembered. She recalled faintly an ecstasy of pain, the heavy odor of chloroform, a stupor which had deadened sensation, and an awakening to find a little new life to which she had given being, added to the great unnumbered multitude of souls that come and go." As a result,

Edna "began to wish she had not come; her presence was not necessary. She might have invented a pretext for staying away; she might even invent a pretext now for going." However, she stays. "With an inward agony, with a flaming, outspoken revolt against the ways of Nature, she witnessed the scene of torture" (108-109).

Because of this internal need and drive for motherhood, Edna's other side -- her desire for freedom from the confines and constraints of society -- is impossible to attain. Her children, despite or because of the love she has for them, stand as a barrier. She tells Dr. Mandelet when he asks about her travels,

Perhaps -- no, I am not going. I'm not going to be forced into doing things. I don't want to go abroad. I want to be let alone. Nobody has any right -- except children, perhaps -- and even then, it seems to me -- or it did seem -- ' She felt that her speech was voicing the incoherency of her thoughts, and stopped abruptly.

The trouble is,' sighed the Doctor, grasping her meaning intuitively, "that youth is given up to illusions. It seems to be a provision of Nature; a decoy to secure mothers for the race. And Nature takes no account of moral consequences, of arbitrary conditions which we create, and which we feel obliged to maintain at any cost.' (110).