Relationship With the Men of Edna Pontellier

¶ … relationships of Edna Pontellier in Kate Chopin's book, the Awakening. The writer of this paper uses examples from the book to take the reader on a journey through Pontellier's relationships and how they impacted her life and actions.

Awakening With Help

Often times when someone does something like commit suicide the world turns a cold and blind eye to what may have contributed to that person's downward spiral. Authors of literature can take the time to explore this dark side of the person's life, which is exactly what Kate Chopin did in her classic tale The Awakening. Chopin shocked the literary world when she penned the story of Edna Pontellier and her desire to be free of a loveless marriage and boring children. It was written in a time when women were often trapped in such marriages and they had been born and raised to accept such a fate and learn to work within its confines to try and find some small measure of tolerability or happiness. In The Awakening Edna chose to find neither of these things and instead found herself elated at taking control of her destiny even though it meant her own death. The relationships she had with the men around her contributed to her feelings of entrapment and her feelings of imprisonment. Therefore when she made her final decision she did so based on not just her own needs and beliefs but the understanding of what her relationships meant to her and hers to them.

As the story opens we are given a front row seat to the mundane existence of Edna's life. She has a husband that interacts with her as if it is a chore that he must perform and perform with a sense of duty. We se that he is not so remotely jealous that he cares what she does as long as the children are taken care of and he is not expected to contribute to her need for stimulation be it in the intellectual capacity or otherwise. Edna's relationship with her father was typicl of many women's relationships with their fathers during that era. As a young girl she was the apple of his ey though the bulk of care fell to females. She was raised to marry and submit to the mediocrity that would surround her . In this era men raised their daughters to comply and not make waves because if they did so they would gain reputations and that would reflect poorly on the father. He might be accused of being unable to control his household . Therefore female children were expected to study things that would serve them as housewives, find a man and marry him and make her parents look good in their societal place.

Edna had spent her life allowing men to tell her how to act, feel and speak. She had becoime so used to it as a habit she didn't not realize she did so until the nuight she refused to leave the hammock and come in as her husband commanded her to.

"She wondered if her husband had ever spoken to her like that before, and if she had submitted to his command. Of course she had; she remembered that she had. But she could not realize why or how she should have yielded, feeling as she then did. (Chopin, chptr 11)."

When Edna had all that she could take she made the decsion to stand up for herself in a way that no one was going to be able to talk her out of once it was done. She would not be swayed or made to feel selfish anymore for wanting a life and goals of her own. She made the decisions because of the relationships with the men in her life that she would take a stand, once and for all. Howeever., if we study the era of her time we know that this may have bene her only avenue of escape. She would not have to face the ridicule and the glares of those in town who would feel she should have allowed the nothingness to continue in the same manner that they had and were still doing.

"Leonce and the children. They were a part of her life. But they need not have thought that they could possess her, body and soul. How Mademoiselle Reisz would have laughed, perhaps sneered, if she knew! "And you call yourself an artist! What pretensions, Madame! The artist must possess the courageous soul that dares and defies "(Chopin, Chpter, 39).