Edna's Awakening: Rebellion and Self-Destruction in Kate Chopin

Introduction: Rebellion Against Social Norms

Kate Chopin's The Awakening is a tale of rebellion against social norms and the danger of venturing too far from traditional conventions. Through the story of Edna Pontellier, Chopin traces the spiritual and emotional cost of seeking absolute freedom in a society that offers women very little room to move.

Edna and Leonce: An Incompatible Marriage

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. Leonce, by contrast, 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 is therefore unable to share in their laughter. This first chapter sets the tone for the rest of the novel: it is plain 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 has still not returned from the hotel. When he does return, he wakes her up to relate his evening to her, and when she shows little interest, he becomes angry, goes to check on their sons, and then returns 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).

"In short," Chopin writes, "Mrs. Pontellier was not a mother-woman" (Chopin). 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.

The Awakening on Grand Isle

As Edna spent more time with Madame Lebrun, Robert, and the other Creoles on Grand Isle, she observed how casual they were about discussing personal matters, even sexual ones. "A certain light was beginning to dawn dimly within her, the light which, showing the way, forbids it" (Chopin). Edna began to experience feelings she had never dreamed possible; 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).

What Edna experienced that summer was an awakening of her soul — the sensual spirit that lies within all people, but awakens for only 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. This theme of spiritual and sensual awakening in The Awakening has made the novel a foundational text in discussions of American women's literary identity.