The Awakening
Let’s get one thing straight: the actions/thoughts of a character are distinguishable from the actions/thoughts of the author who created that character. People have imaginations. Authors like to use them.
For the most part, the men and women of 1899 begged to differ. When Kate Chopin published The Awakening, people simply could not deal. A book about a woman, Edna Pontellier, who *awakens* to the notion that she is no one’s possession—not her husband’s, not her children’s, not even her lover’s? God forbid. A book about a woman who realizes her own humanity and acknowledges that sometimes being a human means feeling a little capricious? Her Victorian peers could not get past Chopin’s explosion of gender norms, so they shunned both Chopin and her book.
So, what about readers in this day and age, over a hundred years later? They’re certainly less shocked by female infidelity, but some are still not that impressed. Complaints I’ve heard usually revolve around the fact that Edna isn’t unlikeable because she values her independence; she’s unlikeable because she values her independence over everything else. Edna is a mother of two when she experiences her psychological rebirth and she’s fairly candid as to how she sees herself in relation to them. She says, “I would give up the nonessential; I would give my money, I would give my life for my children; but I wouldn’t give myself” (Chopin, 62). She doesn’t hate her kids. Rather, she becomes conscious of the fact that motherhood is only a portion of her identity. The veil of blind contentment is lifted.
I understand that Edna does not react to her awakening in a totally reasonable, moral way. But would we really expect her to—in a time still twenty years shy of women being able to vote? Her emotions have been tempered and her opinions have been ignored for so long that they are bound to erupt in the opposite direction. She might come across as immature and selfish but up to that point, she has lived her life in a completely selfless way, sacrificing her own desires and needs—her essential self-- for her husband and children. Maybe cut her a little bit of slack?
I never thought of Edna as an asshole, but I did think Kerouac was one. I watched him gallivant around in On the Road, encouraging and enabling his friend Dean to abandon his responsibilities as a father. Maybe Edna’s decision to start doing whatever she wanted to do, even if it wasn’t beneficial to her children, is easier for me to digest because she’s a fictional character. Edna is a symbol for the liberation of women and an important milestone in feminist writing; Dean Moriarity is an actual man (Neal Cassady) who in real-life treated his kids and his (many) women poorly. Maybe I justify Edna but not Jack and his gang because Kerouac’s writing skills disappointed me whereas Chopin strung beautiful sentences together like it ain’t no thang. For example, Chopin writes, “He could see plainly that she was not herself. That is, he could not see that she was become herself and daily casting aside that fictitious self which we assume like a garment with which to appear before the world” (Chopin, 75). I liked that— it was nice to read.
Chopin’s novel was ahead of her time in content and in scope. I think that The Awakening is a significant book for men and women alike and it deserves 5 out of 5 flames. When you read it, ask yourself how you feel about Edna. Are you inspired by her renewed sense of wonder or are you put off by how she redefines the concept of a caregiver? Should she have to attend to others if she’s not allowed to attend to herself? These questions speak to moral dilemmas that are relevant to today’s society as well. Consider how your response to Edna might reflect your own expectations of women and how those expectations shape the social-equality landscape today. Hellloooooo, book club potential.
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