The Awakwening

Key terms

Creole: typically, creole peoples are fully or partially descended from white European colonial settlers.

Ennui: boredom, a feeling of dissatisfaction coming from a lack of occupation or excitement

Caprice: sudden changes in mood or behaviour

Insolent: showing a lack of respect, which is perceived as arrogant

Who is the composer?

Kate Chopin was born in St. Louis, USA, in 1850. She was from an old French family. Her father was a highly successful Irish-born businessman who died when Kate was five years old. The household was strongly co-Confederate, and at 13 years of age Chopin was arrested for tearing a Union flag from her porch that had been hung by Union troops, thus earning her the name "Littlest Rebel". Throughout her schooling and into adulthood, Chopin developed her independence of thought and somewhat insubordinate nature. She married in 1870 and had six children, then the family moved to a small village in France where she was known for her unladylike behaviour of riding a horse astride instead of side-saddle, smoking cigarettes, and dressing too fashionably for her surroundings. She also carried on running her husband’s business after he died, which was an unusual thing to do at that time. A couple of years later, she returned to the family home in St. Louis, and began to write; first a piece of music called ‘Polka for Piano’, and then a poem called ‘If It Might Be’. After that she wrote fiction for the rest of her life. In St. Louis, Chopin convened a social gathering one evening each week where both women and men could gather for some intelligent conversation. This became St. Louis’ first literary salon. She published almost 100 short stories, three novels, and one play over twelve years. She died on August 22, 1904 of a massive cerebral haemorrhage.

What is the context of the text?

The Awakening was controversially received and censored when first published in 1899. The novel became popular in the 1960s and is now regarded as an important precursor of modern feminist literature. The novel takes place during the nineteenth century, which is known for peace, prosperity and refined sensibilities. The novel’s depiction of social and cultural restrictions, particularly the dreary oppressiveness of middle-class female reality and limiting gender roles, is particularly pertinent to today’s society. A woman’s role was strictly limited to the domestic sphere, and this stereotype required them to concentrate solely on providing their husbands with a clean home, putting food on the table and raising their children.

The story is set in the deep South of America in the nineteenth century, in particular focusing on the Louisiana Creole people, who are descended from the colonial settlers in Louisiana, especially those of French, Spanish and African descent. The term was first used during colonial times by the early French settlers and indicates a person of non-American ancestry, whether African or European, who was born in the Americas. Louisiana Creoles have common European heritage and share cultural ties, such as the traditional use of the French language and the continuing practice of Catholicism. Later immigrants to New Orleans, such as Irish, Germans and Italians, also married into the Creole groups, though most remain of French ancestry.

The Confederate army is mentioned in the novella as the main protagonist’s father was a colonel in that army. The American Civil War, was fought from 1861 to 1865. Southern states with an economy and way of life based on slave labour individually declared their withdrawal from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America. The states that did not declare secession were known as the “Union” or the “North”. The war revolved around the issue of slavery, especially the extension of slavery into the western territories. After four years of combat the Confederacy collapsed and slavery was abolished.

What are the intended purpose and audience?

Considering the time The Awakening was written in the late nineteenth century, the representation of women in the novel would have been considered quite shocking. The independence of the main protagonist, Edna Pontellier, offers a alternative way of life for women, one of enjoying their own power and without reliance on men. Although this is a story about women’s liberation, it could appeal to men and women alike. It does, however, have a particular appeal for women as it offers insights into a woman’s journey of self-discovery.

What is the text about?

The Awakening explores one woman’s desire to find and live fully within her true self. Edna’s devotion to that purpose causes friction with her friends and family, and also conflicts with the dominant values of her time. We learn a great deal about the reasons why Edna chooses to defy Creole societal expectations through her husband’s values and expectations. Mr. Pontellier (Leonce) feels, rather than perceives, that his wife ‘failed in her duty towards the children’. He senses that she was ‘not a mother-woman’, something that would have been perceived as shocking at the time. Edna realises that in marrying Leonce, and ‘taking her place with a certain dignity in the world of reality’ she closed the ‘portals forever behind her upon the realm of romance and dreams’. At first she is happy in the match, as she realises that she does not feel the passion she did for the calvary officer, and therefore her ‘dissolution’ was never threatened. Likewise Edna’s realisation that she feels relief to be free of the responsibilities of her children, gives her a ‘taste of freedom’.

How does it engage the responder through ideas, techniques and strategies?

The sea is symbolised as a catalyst of awakening for Edna. After Robert insists and Edna relents, she later reflects why she was drawn to the ocean to bathe with Robert. She doesn’t completely understand why she goes with him. Instead she acknowledges that the sea is ‘seductive; never ceasing, whispering, clamouring, murmuring’. For Edna, the sea, ‘inviting the soul to wander for a spell in the abyss of solitude’, helps her learn to appreciate being on her own. The quietness of the sea creates a place where inward reflection can occur and this awareness can bring about transformation. It’s a place where Edna is able to lose herself in its ‘mazes of inward contemplation’. The symbolism continues as an extended metaphor and catalyst for Edna’s awakening. The sea is said to ‘speak to the soul’. It is personified as having a ‘sensuous touch’, wrapping itself around the body in a ‘soft embrace’. In this way the sea supports Edna’s process of transformation.

Music is described as inspiring in Edna ‘pictures in her mind’. She enjoyed listening to Madame Ratignolle playing ‘Solitude’, as she described it. The music appealed to her and inspired the idea of solitude, which Edna comes to value and seek out, awakening her desire to be by herself in her second home, and finally culminating in her ending her own life by drowning in the sea. Edna remarks that when she hears ‘Solitude’ it evokes an image of a naked man ‘standing beside a desolate rock on the seashore’. She interprets his attitude as one of ‘hopeless resignation’. Other images come to her mind with other pieces of music, for example a woman stroking a cat, or children at play. When Mademoiselle Reisz plays the Chopin Impromptu, as Edna reads Robert’s letter, she is mesmerised by the music. It represents her state of mind and her emotional landscape as she reads the letter from Robert. The scene is described as the shadows deepen, and the music ‘grew strange and fantastic’ at the same time. It is a seemingly contradictory mix of turbulence and softness. The shadows grow deeper as the music continues.

The music is personified as filling the room, floating ‘out upon the night’. It moves over the housetops, river and then loses ‘itself in the silence of the upper air’. The letter that Mademoiselle Reisz picks up is wet with tears. The music has touched Edna deeply in her soul, just as she experienced the first time she heard Mademoiselle Reisz play at Grand Isle. The cultural values surrounding motherhood are described in metaphorical terms through the women at Grand Isle. The ‘motherwomen’ are portrayed as being easy to identify by their ‘wings’ that extended out ‘fluttering’ when any harm, real or not, was presumed to befall their children. This is compared to the description of Mrs Pontellier, whom the children would not rush into the arms of when hurt, instead brushing themselves off, in an act of self-resilience, which is not valued in Creole society. A common value of the time, to which Mrs. Pontellier does not ascribe, was for women to ‘idolize’ their children, ‘worship their husbands’ and see it as a ‘holy privilege to efface themselves as individuals’ and ‘grow wings as ministering angels’. The angel metaphor for women suggests that they are there to protect not only the children but their husbands as well. There is little room for women being valued for their interests beyond the home. We get the sense of some dread looming through the description of the night as Edna and Robert stay under the tree before they take the boat home. As the sun dips it is described as ‘turning the western sky to flaming copper and gold’. The flames forewarn passion and danger. The ‘shadows lengthened and crept out like stealthy, grotesque monsters across the grass’, suggesting something horrible is about to happen. Later when Edna and Robert step onto the boat, ‘misty spirit forms’ prowl in the ‘shadows’ and ‘phantom ships’ sail among the reeds. The symbolism here is of Edna and Robert stepping outside the ‘normal’ everyday world. There is a sense that they need to hide their romance and that the only way they can express it is away from the rest of the group, on the other side, away from regular society.