The Awakening

by Kate Chopin

Read: March 2024

I can see why this book would've caused a lot of brouhaha when it came out 125 years ago, though it's something of a bummer that I'd still reccomend this book to some women who might greatly benefit from its perspective (except for the ending, mind).

Essentially, this is a book about a 28-year-old married mother of two, Edna Pontellier, having an epiphany that she's never really considered what she wants in her life, and has therefore just followed the tracks set before her like the next little trolley car in a long line of the same, and starts to look for a way out.

As a whole, I like the book. I think it's intense and scattered in a way that reflects internal turmoil (such as a feminist awakening) very well. Chopin has a good grasp on plot and and using multiple characters weaving in and out of each other's line of sight as a mosaic to create narrative. That being said, it's clearly a very ambitious novel and on a sentense level I don't know that Chopin quite hits it on the head and while the descriptions are just fine (I'm not a visual reader, I don't care for physical descriptions of things) they don't manage to reflect Edna's state of mind or offer further insight to her burgeoning self-actualization. She does manage to do so sometimes! This means it's all the more apparent when she doesn't do it, but lines like upon his coming home from a night out with friends: "Mr. Pontellier had forgotten the bonbons and peanuts for the boys. Notwithstanding he loved them very much..."(7) and when leaving again: "The boys were tumbling about, clining to his legs, imploring that numerous things be brought back to them. Mr. Pontellier was a great favorite..."(9) and receiving a gift from him in his absence: "Mrs. Pontellier was always very generous with the contents of such a box; she was quite used to receiving them..." (9) The bonbons keep coming up, at least early in the book and are clearly a measure of soothing familial strife. When I first read Mr. Pontellier promising to bring his boys bonbons and then not doing so, I wrote him off as a wire mother without even the benefit of a bottle. And of course the scene continues with him retaliating against "his wife" for the audacity of sleeping late at night. (And then immediately conking out)

Which actually brings me to another thing that I noticed where Chopin very nearly made a strong point on a word-choice level--at the very beginning of the novel she seemed to carefully choose when to call the characters "Mr/Mrs Pontellier" vs. "Edna/Léonce" but that falls by the wayside rather quickly. I suspect ultimately it has to do with Mr. Pontellier literally not being "on screen" for most of the book, but it still doesn't show a particularly good grasp of what word choice is indicating to her audience. Contrast that with the mini-scene of Edna and Robert trying to recount a funny story to Léonce, only to find it had lost all amusement until he leaves (3-4). An excellent scene to show what Mr. Pontellier's presence does to Edna's ability to enjoy things, and contrasting that effect with the effect Robert has. It even sets up what swimming in the gulf starts to mean for Edna in a core way, thus setting up the very last scene of the book.

Spoilers for the end

I do wonder at the ending quite a bit. I'm really not sure what Chopin was trying to do with it. And not just with the Woolfian suicide (though 40 years prior), but with the labor scene exactly prior. I think nowadays we all hear "think of the children" all the fucking time and it's usually chanted so as to drown out any research finding that X or Y actually helps children, so as a modern reader it did make me roll my eyes a little hard. Especially since Edna did not think much of her children very much at all. I think Raoul's name is mentioned twice and the other kid (Etienne) I had to look up. They're almost never in the room with her, she rarely thinks of them literally, let alone thinks of them figuratively (ie-of their current state/welfare):

She was fond of her children in an uneven, impulsive way. She would sometimes gather them passionately to her heart; she would sometimes forget them. The year before they had spent part of the summer with their grandmother Pontellier in Iberville. Feeling secure regarding their happiness and welfare, she did not miss them except with an occasional intense longing. Their absence was a sort of relief, though she did not admit this, even to herself. It seemed to free her of a responsibility which she had blindly assumed and for which Fate had not fitted her.

So why include Madame Ratignolle clutching at her sleeve, repeating this maxim at her? I don't know that I'd ascribe any intent on her part (on the one hand she told Robert to back off, on the other that's all she does and that was way back in chapter 8) but why would Chopin include it? When Edna does think of her children they're only further evidence that she needs to change her life completely. She really does have a problem with emotional object permanence regarding them. Either they're in her field of vision and she is pleased, or they aren't and she forgets they exist entirely. Edna seems more shaken up by the actual blood and pain of the labor (understandable, birth is gross) than by the concept of children, and she's already done it twice with no mention of her or her husband having an eye on a third. So what children is she thinking of? She's still living on the same block as her kids, does she think they'll be treated cruelly by other children for having an independent mother? If so, it's not indicated anywhere.

She had said over and over to herself: “To-day it is Arobin; to-morrow it will be some one else. It makes no difference to me, it doesn’t matter about Léonce Pontellier—but Raoul and Etienne!” She understood now clearly what she had meant long ago when she said to Adèle Ratignolle that she would give up the unessential, but she would never sacrifice herself for her children. Despondency had come upon her there in the wakeful night, and had never lifted. There was no one thing in the world that she desired. There was no human being whom she wanted near her except Robert; and she even realized that the day would come when he, too, and the thought of him would melt out of her existence, leaving her alone. The children appeared before her like antagonists who had overcome her; who had overpowered and sought to drag her into the soul’s slavery for the rest of her days. But she knew a way to elude them. She was not thinking of these things when she walked down to the beach.

This section feels very much like Chopin tacking on a reason for the suicide at the very end. If we can assume that she'd happily be single/divorced/separated whatever from Mr. Pontellier if only it weren't for her children--why? It'll cause them pain? She won't be allowed to see them? I don't see how suicide precludes either of these outcomes. (Not to imply suicide is logical, but like, why does Chopin write it?)

And to be perfectly honest, from a reading comprehension perspective, what does "...she wanted [no one] near her except Robert; and she even realized that the day would come when he, too," he too what? He too leaves her? He either already has or he'd be the first because no one else has left her; the whole point of the book is that she's the one leaving.

The suicide did not surprise me, but not necessarily because Chopin built up to it well, but rather I could see that she didn't know how to end the book. It reminded me a little of the Seer and ZaMer in Hollow Knight just sort of dissipating once you finish their side quests: like, well this character's purpose is over so I guess now they're dead somehow. I don't particularly think that it fits the character of Edna Pontellier, and I don't think it matches the theme either. She's a very young woman running face-first into a midlife crisis because the world demands she start motherhood at 20 and never think about what her life is and who she is as a person. The theme would be better served open-ended, with this implication that life keeps going on, things continue, that while we tell children "first your born, then you grow up, then you're a mommy, then your a grandma, then you live happily ever after!" that life doesn't come structured, that we have to corrupt life when we turn it into a narrative. That when we make human experience (vast, infinite, unknowable) into a story, we have to pick an ending. We have to cut away the complications and the randomness. Fiction has to make sense, the world has no such obligation. The suicide is the closing action of a story, it is not a true representation of life.