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A Longing for Control in The Awakening

Spring 2006
19th Century American Novel
1407 words

A Longing for Control in The Awakening

  Kate Chopin’s infamous novel The Awakening focuses on one woman, Edna Pontellier, and her realization that she no longer fits the niche given to her by 19th century American society. The main plot and problem of the novel is Edna’s desire for her own agency or free will. Unfortunately for Edna, she is ahead of her time and the only true solution is death – and only during this last act does Edna truly have complete power over herself.

  At the beginning of The Awakening, Mrs. Pontellier seems, to the casual reader, to be a typical 19th century wife, only standing out among her peers in ancestry (she, a Kentucky native, has married into the high-class New Orleans Creole society). However, Mrs. Pontellier is feeling unfulfilled – she just hasn’t realized it yet. Mrs. Pontellier’s husband Leoncé is everything that a 19th century husband should be, although to the 21st century eye, he is sadly lacking. Leoncé Pontellier isn’t a cruel or unfeeling man, but he has been brought up in a society in which women are property whose purpose is to bear children and care for both husband and children, a society where an uncontent woman must have psychological problems (and “hysteria” is due to woman’s weak constitution, rather that being cooped up in the house). Thus, his wife’s thoughts and feelings are of little matter to him (although of course, as her husband, he does care for her well-being). He has “more important” things on his mind, like business. Any problem that his wife has is clearly her problem and not his own – after all, according to society’s standards, he is doing everything right – he is even being more lenient than most husbands of the day would be!

  However, despite having such a seemingly “perfect” life – what with her loving (and rich) husband, two sons, and good friends – Mrs. Pontellier, through her own musings while on vacation, realizes that she doesn’t fit her mold. She has done her “duty” by bearing her husband two sons, yet she isn’t the mothering type, nor does she like fawning over her husband’s every word. As she falls in love with Robert Lebrun, the son of their hostess, she becomes more aware of herself as her own person, not her husband’s, she becomes “Edna” rather than “Mrs. Pontellier.” She begins to think thoughts that she doesn’t quite understand herself, and begins to feel more alive, yet at the same time, her husband’s power over her is intensely depressing. He being a husband and she being a wife, he must always get his way – even if he has to manipulate her into it. At one point he calls Edna into bed, but she refuses quite forcefully (“‘I mean to stay out here. I don’t wish to go in, and I don’t intend to. Don’t speak to me like that again; I shall not answer you.’” (34)), wishing to stay outside on the hammock. Rather than going to bed himself and leaving her be, he intrudes on her happy solitude and comes to bother her with his cigar-smoking presence on the porch. “Edna began to feel like one who awakens gradually out of a dream, a delicious, grotesque, impossible dream, to feel again the realities pressing into her soul.” (34) She gives up and goes inside to bed.

  Once back home in New Orleans and away from Robert, her life as Mrs. Pontellier falls heavily back onto her. Edna begins attempting to make herself a happier person, only causing everyone distress in the process. She stops taking visitors simply because she feels like it. She stops the maids amid their duties to have them pose for her painting. She befriends a notorious womanizer (and has a brief love affair with him) and an estranged unmarried woman (who understands her and takes her under her wing). She refuses to go to her sister’s wedding. Worst of all, while her husband is away, without even asking his permission, she moves out of her grand house and into a small four-room house down the road. When he discovers this, he tells her no and she ignores him – something quite unthinkable in that day and age! All of this causes problems for her husband socially, and he has to save face for her on most accounts.

  The ending of the novel is ambiguous and debatable. Edna walks out to the beach of Grand Island and swims out as far as she can. The novel ends with her death – a common fate for most 19th century heroines who found themselves out of place in their society. Once a woman had realized her potential that society would not let her reach, it was impossible for her to just go back to being a docile housewife. Thus the only answer for her is death. Edna’s perfect solution and key to her true happiness would be to run away with Robert. Yet this would make them social outcasts, and while Edna may not want to attend to her visitors every Tuesday, a complete rejection of society is not for her. Yet after her taste of what life is like without her husband and the children, she cannot go back to the role of the obedient wife and mother, and so Edna goes the way of the 19th century heroine. The question here is: did Edna go to the beach intending to swim out into the ocean and never return, or was her swimming out so far an accident that she passively decided to accept? In my opinion, Edna’s suicide was intentional and Edna was in no way passive about it. It would have been passive had she been swept out by a rip tide, perhaps, but the case is quite the opposite: “She remembered the night she swam far out, and recalled the terror that seized her at the fear of being unable to regain the shore. She did not look back now, but went on and on...” (124) If Edna had wanted to save her life, she would have turned back at that moment, but instead she keeps swimming until she is completely exhausted. Thus her last act is her own decision, made as Edna and not Mrs. Pontellier.

  Chopin is trying to make a point with this novel – a point which, unfortunately for Chopin, was, like Edna, ahead of its time. Chopin was using Edna’s point of view to try and “wake up” her readers, but sadly, the novel was underappreciated for her effort and even hated (mainly due to Edna’s inattention to her husband, dismissal of her children and especially due to her affair). What is Chopin attempting to say with Edna’s quest for agency? First of all, and most obviously, she is trying to say something on behalf of women everywhere – women are people, too. Their thoughts and desires are just as important as a man’s, and the notion that a man should have control over his wife to the point of dictating what type of person she should be is highly distressing. Also, there is a message here, whether Chopin actually intended it or not, that a person cannot just wildly use his or her own free will to do whatever he or she wants without thinking of the consequences. No matter what the time period, it is just simply impossible to escape the conventions of society. Edna’s abandonment of her Tuesday visits was as shocking and seen as rude as not answering or returning phone calls would be today. It’s just not done. Thankfully in the 21st century we have much greater freedoms than Edna had, but there will always be irksome “must-dos” that we cannot abandon (regularly attending school and work, visiting grandparents, paying bills) without serious consequences. Having to live up to so many expectations can sometimes be depressing, but if one loves being alive, perhaps it’s better to just grin, bear it, and put it in the back of one’s mind – constantly thinking and worrying about it will only lead to an end like Edna’s.

  In conclusion, Edna’s attempt to gain her own agency was the direct cause of her death. Her “awakening” lead to her being unable to bear her husband’s agency dominating her own, because she knew she would never be able to be fully in control and thus, happy in life, she used her free will to make one final decision that no one could take away from her.

Works Cited

Chopin, Kate. The Awakening and Selected Stories of Kate Chopin. Penguin Books: New York. 1976.