The Awakening was about an average woman from late 19th century New Orleans named Edna Pontellier. This was a time in which women had expectations. Expectations to get married, raise their families, and care for their husbands like good little housewives. Edna has a great awakening (hence the title) and she makes it her mission to break free of the societal bonds and become independent. Kate Chopin, the author, had the incredible ability of making a simple woman’s thoughts and desires the most exciting, suspenseful, and thought provoking aspects of a controversial yet popular novel.
Chopin gives these internal events a sense of excitement, suspense, and climax by telling the story through Edna’s thoughts and actions. Edna happens to be a very unpredictable woman. Readers get to see exactly what triggered her new mind set and how she would accomplish independence through her own eyes. The novel starts with Edna on vacation at the Grand Isle. This was the setting Chopin used to portray Edna’s inner contemplation and awakening. At this point, Edna is spending a lot of time with Robert.
She uses this time with him for deep thought and self improvement. An example of this contemplation is when Edna sits by the ocean, listening to the sound of the sea. She is put into a peaceful trance and begins to think of herself as an individual for the first time. Chopin uses this short experience to foreshadow the independence Edna will desire later in the novel. This is also an example of how Chopin builds suspense in her novel despite it being done through mental and psychological events. The events may lead readers to wonder what exactly is being foreshadowed.
Edna’s awakening, arguably the most significant internal event in the novel, was also a result of her enlightening stay at the Grand Isle. Edna could never swim. Robert continually tried to teach her but it seemed like she would never learn until one faithful night. She attended a party at the Isle and everyone went for a swim in the middle of the night. She hesitantly entered the water but something in her consciousness empowered her and she suddenly began to swim. She swam out far and alone, feeling as if she finally had control of her body and her life.
Chopin’s descriptions of the significant event were exciting and climactic. A reader could almost feel the power and independence Edna felt as she swam for the first time. Chopin describes her as wanting to “swim out where no woman had swum before” (Chapter X). She went from not being able to swim at all to swimming incredibly on her own and doing so without fear. Edna learning how to swim was more than just one exciting development in her life. It triggered resounding shock waves that would lead her to seek freedom. It was a catalyst for her journey to become an independent woman.
Edna’s fight for freedom began with defiance and stubbornness. It all started the night of her “great awakening”. After the party, Edna came home with Robert and she laid down in a hammock. She laid there and basked in the glory of her new found independence until Robert left and Leonce returned. Leonce requested that she come inside to go to sleep but for the first time, she realizes that she has always submitted to her husband’s requests without question. She refuses to do as he says and he is frustrated by her defiance. The excitement from the awakening transitions to suspense.
Chopin leaves readers afraid of what might happen as Leonce is quite irritated by her stubbornness. Eventually he yielded and sat outside with her, smoking his cigar. This was a small victory for Edna but it was a climax that she appreciated. This was only one small step to her personal freedom as this kind of refusal and stubbornness would be repeated. Every Tuesday for six years had been set aside to receive visitors and take calls; it was a reception day. The first Tuesday after the Pontelliers returned from the Grand Isle had an interesting development as Edna refused to stay in o take calls. She also refused to leave a polite excuse for those who wished to visit her. When Leonce finds out that she has been neglecting her social duties, he is angry for he fears that it might harm business relations. This is a prime example of how Edna attempted to shatter social and societal bonds and expectations. Chopin gives this external event a significant atmosphere of excitement with internal events. Edna’s feelings of rage after Leonce leaves and refuses to have dinner with her as a result of her actions is incredibly exciting.
She attempts to crush her wedding ring and shatters a vase in a fit of rage. While some of the excitement is created by external actions, the defiance and rage she feels with these internal developments are the true catalysts of the excitement Chopin expresses in her work. In the final stage of Edna’s fight for independence, she leaves her children with their grandmother and stays home alone working on her art. She continues to improve herself and her talents by painting, showing her work to her friends, and living without her family.
To her husband’s surprise, these actions prompt Edna to rent out a pigeon house and leave her home. She does so because she feels that nothing in her home belongs to her but to her husband. It is at this point in which Chopin portrays Edna as completely independent. With her refusal to attend her sister’s wedding despite her father’s wishes, her coming and going as she pleases, and the adultery she commits with Arobin and Robert, it can be inferred that Edna is now internally independent as well as externally.
Chopin excites readers with this mental development as she has now become the changed, self improved woman that she has aimed to be. A woman without family responsibilities or commitments. Chopin concludes Edna’s fight for independence with an ultimate discovery and climax. Edna returns to the Grand Isle later in the year. She pays a surprise visit to Victor and Mariequita who happened to be discussing her dinner party. She tells Victor that she will have dinner with them and goes for a walk on the beach. As she walks, she is in deep contemplation.
Edna realizes that her husband and children are the only shackles holding her down now that she has broken society’s bonds. She feels that the only way to truly be free is to end her own life so she removes all her clothes and walks into the water. She swims farther than she ever has before. It could be said that she swam out where no woman had swum before before. Chopin has readers in suspense about how the story will truly end but she kills the suspense and excitement with the ultimate climax: a surrender to the sea and death. The awakening was more than just an average novel.
It aided feminists in their struggle for gender equality and it was a controversial and criticized piece of literature because of it. What makes the novel so important is how Kate Chopin portrays the situations in the story. The action, conflict, and excitement are all psychological. It is amazing that Chopin could make nothing but a woman’s thoughts so meaningful. Edna’s goals, desires, and thoughts romanticize the goals of the early feminist movements. The way in which Chopin expresses significant psychological events is incredible and effective in portraying female struggle for independence and equality in the time.
