Motherhood and Self-Identity in Chopin's The Awakening

Introduction: Motherhood as a Literary Theme

Motherhood is one of the oldest themes in literature, finding explicit and profound reference in nearly every creation myth, and many examples in that foundation stone of Western literature, the Bible. Yet it was not until the rise of the modern novel that motherhood began to be examined with the complexity and honesty — and from the multi-faceted viewpoints — that had earlier been applied to other literary themes. The reasons for this are complex and debatable, but what is certain is that with the publication of female authors under their own names beginning in the late nineteenth century, new and often radically different — and upsetting — ideas about the role and attitudes of women began to emerge in literature.

Kate Chopin's short 1899 novel The Awakening provides a particularly unique view, for its time, of motherhood. Edna Pontellier, the main character of the novel, finds motherhood to be a burden rather than a joy, almost exclusively it seems. She is sharply contrasted with her friend Adèle Ratignolle, who is the very picture of the perfect wife and mother and enjoys every minute of it. It is through these two women that Chopin illustrates the main theme and message of The Awakening. Through the development of the two characters, their relationships with their families and each other, and the different ways in which the two women define themselves, Chopin boldly asserts the utter lack of a gender difference in the human drive for self-recognition and social acceptance on one's own individually defined terms, without regard to societal constraints.

Edna and Adèle: Contrasting Portraits

Though she does not appear until the fourth chapter, in many ways Adèle Ratignolle's friendship with Edna Pontellier begins the arc of the novel. In the previous chapter, Edna is admonished by her husband for "her habitual neglect of the children" (12). The chapter also describes Edna's general way of life with a husband who is often away on business — he sends back many things for her, and she "was always very generous" in sharing these things with her friends, but rarely gives a thought to her children (17). Madame Ratignolle, on the other hand, was "delicious in the role" of the mother, "the embodiment of every womanly grace and charm" (19). From the outset, the novel presents these two close friends as diametrically opposed to each other.

Their continued development throughout the novel clearly illustrates the independence that is Chopin's central theme, and the impossibility of that independence given the demands of society. What proves to be the culmination of Edna's affair with Robert — a betrayal of both her husband and her children, as she hopes to abandon her family and leave with Robert — is interrupted by Madame Ratignolle's illness. Her constant mothering, though not directly the cause of her sickness, has given her no protection against the vagaries of life, and Edna is called away from her passions in order to tend to the sick — an act that can itself be read as maternal, and one she proves inadequate to perform.

Edna's independence has developed to the point where this final pull of social obligation makes the two impulses completely incompatible. Robert is gone when she returns, and Edna drowns herself, ignoring Adèle's dying admonition to "Think of the children!" (289). One woman dies in grace, the other in despair.

Family Relationships and Temperament

The two ways in which the women relate to their families are hugely important in defining their characters and thus illustrating the novel's theme. Madame Ratignolle is a born mother and wife; she dotes on her children and worships her husband, yet does not seem at all vapid. Rather, she does these things because she truly enjoys them and finds them rewarding. The difference in the Pontellier household is made palpable when Adèle suggests that Léonce and Edna might be more "united" if he stayed home more in the evenings, to which Edna reacts blankly, saying "We wouldn't have anything to say to each other" (179).

This exchange makes clear that it is not a difference of situation that defines these two women as so diametrically opposed, but rather a difference of temperament. Adèle Ratignolle genuinely enjoys — that is, is individually suited to — the traditional role of wife and mother. Edna Pontellier is decidedly not suited to this lifestyle, yet it is still demanded of her. Adèle's inability to comprehend this is reflective of society's broader rejection of Edna's individual desires and attitudes. As scholars of nineteenth-century feminism have noted, the period offered women of Edna's temperament virtually no sanctioned alternatives to the domestic role.