Navigate

About

Profile
Astrology
Favorites
Likes & Dislikes

Collections

Books
Breyers
CDs
DVDs
MP3s

Creations

Art & Photos (DOWN)
Writing

Writing / Schoolwork

Edna Pontellier: Anti-Heroine

Spring 2006
19th Century American Novel
1941 words

Edna Pontellier: Anti-Heroine

  The Awakening is a novel well-known for the controversy surrounding it. Published in 1899, the book shocked its conservative readers with its open portrayal of a woman’s infidelity. Although the affair depicted was the most offensive item to the readers, they also found the actions and psychological realism of the main character, Mrs. Edna Pontillier, to be disturbing. Female leads of the day were simpering, fainting, yet loyal wives and mothers who looked up to their male counterparts and were every inch the ideal Victorian lady. The novel’s psychological realism, written from Mrs. Pontellier’s point of view and thus going into her innermost thoughts, reveal early on that she is not exactly what Victorian readers looked for in their heroines. Reading contextual documents of the period reveal at least four qualities of a proper Victorian lady: wifehood, motherhood, an angelic attitude and appearance, and the following of social and household regulations and duties. Edna Pontellier is depicted as (at first) trying to conform to these qualities, but ultimately becoming frustrated with them and giving up.

  One of a woman’s most important roles in the late 19th century, and throughout the history of Western culture, is that of a wife. Women throughout the ages have been viewed as valuable “commodities,” useful for trading for alliances and the like. Even as late as the 20th century, wifehood (and motherhood along with it) was considered to be the ultimate goal of any woman. “A normal girl of the 19th century... looked forward to marriage as one of the supreme moments of her life. All social pressures, including home training, education, reading, and sermons emphasized marriage and motherhood as providing a woman’s greatest self-realization and her deepest influence on society.” (Riegal 84) A wife was to be “neat, orderly, economical, and efficient, and in general to cater to the comfort of her husband.” (Riegal 100) Although Mrs. Pontellier does try in the beginning to fulfill her role as a wife, she is already unsatisfied with this way of life. She does not dote on her husband as other women do; at times this rather irritates him: “He thought it very discouraging that his wife, who was the sole object of his existence, evinced so little interest in things which concerned him, and valued so little her conversation.” (Chopin 5) Eventually she gives up even trying to be a “good” wife, and even goes so far as to deliberately disobey her husband when he demands that she not follow up on her plan to move out of the house. And of course, the shocking event that the book is most (in)famous for – Edna is unfaithful to her husband and has an affair with a young man who is notorious for such things.

  With wifehood usually came motherhood and thus another role for a woman to fill, another role which Edna Pontellier does not meet to her peers’ satisfaction – especially not that of her husband. Today we recognize that many people, men and women alike, simply do not want to be parents. However, in the 19th century, not having children was not an option. It was a wife’s duty to bear her husband’s progeny whether she liked children or not. After the children were born, she was responsible for them in all respects and expected to stay at home with them rather than going out. Motherhood was the pinnacle of humanity. “Mother love is as much of God’s love as the finite human heart can hold,” says one contemporary writer. (Contextual Documents 156) Many readers, even in modern times, criticize Edna for being a bad mother. However, as stated before, there is a difference between wanting children and having to have children. Edna originally didn’t know any better – that there was any option for her not to have children – and she expects that she should care for them more than she actually does. Thankfully for Edna, she’s a member of the upper class, and when her husband goes off to spend time with his friends (which is almost all the time), she is not completely saddled with the care of the children, as she has a hired nurse working for her. Towards the beginning of the novel, Edna’s husband keeps insisting that one of their sons has a fever until she finally gets out of bed to go check on him. Ever the concerned parent, Mr. Pontellier goes out to smoke a cigar and then falls asleep, but not before scolding Edna about “her inattention, her habitual neglect of the children. If it was not a mother’s place to look after children, whose on earth was it?” (Chopin 6) Later in the novel, Mr. Pontellier muses on his wife’s attitude towards her children:

  “If one of the little Pontellier boys took a tumble whilst at play, he was not apt to rush crying to his mother’s arms for comfort... in short, Mrs. Pontellier was not a mother-woman. The mother-women seemed to prevail that summer at Grand Isle. It was easy to know them, fluttering about with extended, protecting wings when any harm, real or imaginary, threatened their precious brood. They were women who idolized their children, worshiped their husbands, and esteemed it a holy privilege to efface themselves as individuals and grow wings as ministering angels.” (Chopin 8)

  These “mother-women” which Mr. Pontellier broods on are the ideal Victorian ladies. Mr. Pontellier realizes that his wife is not at all one of these women, and finds it a little off-putting. Edna’s foil is her friend Madame Ratignolle. Madame Ratignolle loves her children to the point of obsession, and is this ideal type of “mother-woman” that Edna is not. Besides wifehood and motherhood, women of the 19th century were also defined by their manner and looks. The ideal woman was to be equal to a delicate, fragile angel. “Woman, Victorian society dictated, was to be chaste, delicate, and loving.” (Smith-Rosenberg, 183) Women were seen as notably weaker than those of the opposite sex, and prone to fits of blushing, weeping, fainting, headaches, and even hysteria. (Riegal 37)

  “The feminine physique was accepted as not only more beautiful than that of the male, but also as more complex and delicate, and hence more liable to ill health. This propensity toward sickness was felt to be enhanced by woman’s more sensitive mind, which was more susceptible to outside influences. Feminine weakness and even fragility, as evidenced in pallor and emancipation, was considered very appealing to men – possibly because it emphasized male virility and strength. Such weakness was accepted by women as desirable. Current fictional heroines, created largely by women to appeal to other women, emphasized unending physical difficulties, of which the least was a strong propensity so suffer headaches.” (Riegal 36)

  Subjects deemed improper were not to be brought up to women, and if they were, the properly trained woman would pretend she didn’t understand. “The refined woman quite obviously was expected not to speak of undergarments, bodily functions, or the physical aspects of sex in mixed company. Coarse and indelicate expressions and off-color stories were certainly improper... Mention that a woman was pregnant was strictly taboo; in fact the newspapers did not report births, on the ground of delicacy...” (Riegal 61) Women were to look as fragile as they were supposedly were – pale (no sun-tans or freckles) and covered from head to toe (to protect their complexions as well as their modesty). Edna Pontellier is not portrayed as a weeping and wilting heroine with delicate sensibilities – far from it. Even in the first chapter, she returns from the beach with a sunburn, of all things.

  Perhaps the most obvious to Edna Pontellier’s peers was her neglect of her social duties. The life of a member of the upper class was fraught with rules and regulations regarding almost every aspect of daily life. One of the most interesting aspects of upper-class 19th century life, and perhaps most irritating-sounding to modern day readers, is the ritual of visiting. There were a myriad of rules concerning visiting and the use of visiting cards. Mrs. Pontellier had designated Tuesday as her visiting day. She was expected to stay in the house and entertain any acquaintances who might drop by. If she was out at the time they dropped by, they would leave calling cards, and she was expected to return the call. Upon returning home from Grand Isle, Edna neglects her visiting duties and ignores calling cards. She goes out for a stroll on Tuesday simply because she feels like it. This is a major social gaffe. Her husband is less than pleased.

  Besides visiting her acquaintances, the ideal woman was expected to engage in various other daily activities, as Robert Riegal tells us in American Women:

  “The American woman of the 19th century was generally married, and if the women’s magazines, the etiquette books, and the numerous polemic writings are to be believed spent many hours with her children at her knee, teaching them the deep moral and religious truths that were held the basis of American civilization; in preparing with loving care various delicacies for her husband; in reading elevating literature and doing fancy needlework; in laboring for missions and temperance, and in consoling the sick; in visiting and entertaining her friends...” (Riegal 132)

  We are given the impression that up until the point of the book’s beginning, Edna Pontellier tries to be this ideal woman. Eventually, however, as the novel progresses, Edna “awakens” to realize that she doesn’t fit, nor does she want to fit, the place that society has deemed fit for a woman. Edna’s “awakening” ultimately leads to her own demise. Since she has realized her full potential as a human being but knows that society will not let her realize it (nor will she ever be able to voluntarily fit back into society), the novel ends with her swimming out to see. A contemporary reviewer, displeased with the book, thoughtfully gives Mrs. Pontellier this advice: “Had she lived by Prof. William James’s advice to do one thing a day one does not want to do... flirted less and looked after her children more... we need not have been put to the unpleasantness of reading about her and the temptations she trumped up for herself.” (Contextual Documents 166)

  In conclusion, Kate Chopin’s Edna Pontellier is a far cry from the ideal Victorian woman and heroine, and as to be expected, readers were upset by this. “The recording reviewer drops a tear over one more clever author gone wrong,” writes one contemporary reviewer, who, although praising Chopin’s skill at description, is thoroughly shaken by “the contemporary love affairs of a wife and mother.” (Contextual Documents 165) Another equally shocked reviewer is “fain to believe that Miss Chopin did not herself realise what she was doing when she wrote it,” claiming that Edna “lives amiably with her husband without caring for him” and has “a slowly growing admiration for another man” who is “too honorable to speak and goes away.” However, Mrs. Pontellier, the reviewer claims, “is spoiled already, and she falls with a merely animal instinct into the arms of the first woman she meets.” (Contextual Documents 166) Modern readers reading The Awakening would hardly claim that Edna came across as some sort of rampaging harlot pouncing on any man she meets, but to contemporary readers, her complete opposition to the ideal Victorian lady made it seem as if that’s just what she was. It is a sad thought that a novel that is now seen as a forerunner in women’s literature was, during its Chopin’s time, seen as a trashy waste of its author’s “cleverness.”

Works Cited

Chopin, Kate. The Awakening and Selected Stories of Kate Chopin. New York: Signet Classic, 1976.

“Contextual Documents” handout.

Riegal, Robert E. American Women: A Story of Social Change. Rutherford: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1970.

Smith-Rosenberg, Carroll. Disorderly Conduct: Visions of Gender in Victorian America. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1985.