Gone With the Waves

So the pages came to an end, but there is an uncertainty that keeps the story alive forever. As Edna prepares to let go of her emotions, she asks Victor for a towel to go swim in the sea. Her indifference at this point keeps her from caring about the coldness of the water or even her nakedness as she enters the water. Edna swims far out, as she had been meaning to do ever since her first search for awakening. Nothing made her look back, not even fear of losing herself in the depths of the ocean. 

"Exhaustion was pressing upon and overpowering her." There is never any concrete assertion about the outcome of the story, but Chopin gives hints to the reader. This one, about the water overpowering Edna, suggests that she will drown. However, this doesn't worry Edna, as she continues swimming despite her tiredness. Edna continues thinking all the way, remembering Robert's final goodbye "because [he] loves her." Even though Edna loved him back, she thought "he did not understand," saying that he never knew what she was feeling. Here Chopin is saying that even though Robert loved Edna, he didn't really see what Edna had been trying to become, and he could never step in her shoes and understand what she was going through.

The possibility is open that "Doctor Mandelet would have understood," but it is too late. This also implies that there is no future ahead of Edna; she has given up, and there is nothing that will bring her back to shore. "Her strength was gone." All that had kept Edna living, her strength, her fight against the injustice that overpowered her, her love for Robert, the children, it was all gone. Having nothing else to look forward to, Edna decided to let go of her life.

Before being able to leave completely, though, Edna felt the "old terror" coming back to haunt her. However, she is strong enough to disregard it. Chopin knows that it is hard to let go of the only life you have ever know; she knows that all good things come with the fear of making a mistake. She also knows, though, that it's worth it. The fear can be temporary, and it should be ignored to prevent losing opportunities. Edna knows what she wants and what she needs, so the terror she feels is not enough to stop her. 

"Edna heard her father's voice and her sister Margaret's." Edna is still tied down to her past, remembering her father and her oldest sister. These are the people who formed her, who led her way into the world and taught her all she knew. Now, in moments of worry and uncertainty, it is these same people who lead her way out of the world. They provide a security in her that gives her the strength to continue onto the unknown, the deepest waters. She remembered the world she was leaving behind, noticing the "barking of an old dog chained to a sycamore tree." Edna understood that, like all she had ever known, the dog was chained to the world, thinking it was living in freedom but not having enough power to decide its own future. It was the tree that kept the dog from running away; it was the barking that showed an eagerness to be free.

The final images before the abrupt ending of the book are ones of peace and beauty, with the "hum of bees, and the musky odor of pinks." The world doesn't sound like a bad place; in fact, it seems pretty appealing. Why, then, does Edna choose to leave it behind? Following from past events, there are a number of reasons why Edna may have finally decided to commit suicide. It could be a symbol of success; as Edna realized her mission was complete and she had become awakened, there was nothing left for her to do in the world. It could also be proof of failure; Edna understood that nothing she did would ever make people like Mr. Pontellier and Robert understand, so she gave up and in a silent attempt at cowardice she ended her life. I personally think this last option is the case, because there was no proof of success in any of the characters who watched her change. However, the reader should not be sad with how things turned out, because Edna left with pacific acceptance and the world behind her had the sweet smell of roses.

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The Man's Reaction

Except for the beginning of the book, the focus of the story and the action has been mostly on Mrs. Pontellier. There is, however, another character whose emotions and responses should be noted to understand Mrs. Pontellier's effect on the world around her. Mr. Pontellier is the man of the house, or at least had been before his wife decided to change before her eyes. Mr. Pontellier feels angry, worried, but most of all confused, as he doesn't understand where his wife's strange conduct is coming from.

The first evidence of Mr. Pontellier's disapproval with the situation came when Mrs. Pontellier claimed to having left the house on Thursday just because she wished to. To that, he says "why, my dear, I should think you'd understand by this time that people don't do such things." (100) Mrs. Pontellier doesn't even find herself opposing his restricting comments, merely explaining that she wanted to leave, so she did. Catastrophic as this behavior seemed to Mr. Pontellier, a couple of minutes later he did that which he had so earnestly accused his wife of doing with no double thought about it. "I'm going to get dinner at the club. Good night." (102) Obviously needing a reason to go out of the house was a law that applied only to women. The juxtaposition that these two events create is enough for the reader to understand the unfairness of the laws governing woman conduct.

Mr. Pontellier's self-assessment doesn't find any flaw in how he treats Mrs. Pontellier. In fact, he considers himself "a rather courteous husband so long as he met a certain tacit submissiveness in his wife." (110) Until this moment, Mr. Pontellier took this behavior for granted. Bad idea. Now that Mrs. Pontellier is acting to demonstrate specifically her lack of submissiveness to society's restrictions, Mr. Pontellier has no idea what to do. It takes all of his self-control to continue being courteous to his wife. 

In fact, Mr. Pontellier finds himself going in search of the family's physician, taking his wife's conduct as a sickness and looking for a solution. Doctor Mandelet seemed to think that it was all a passing stage in Mrs. Pontellier's life, and should all be cured when given some time. However, he could not restrain from asking the questions that were bothering him. "Has she been associating of late with a a circle of pseudo-intellectual women--super-spiritual superior beings?" "Nothing hereditary? Nothing peculiar about her family antecedents, is there?" (126) The doctor clearly agrees that there is something wrong with Mrs. Pontellier, even daring to mock her by calling her ideals "pseudo-intellectual." It is therefore not only a problem of how Mr. Pontellier sees his wife's change, but this shows that everyone in society was programmed to disapprove of Mrs. Pontellier's (or, for that matter, anyone's) opposing behavior. Chopin used Mr. Pontellier and the doctor to represent the general hostility that she, Mrs. Pontellier, and The Awakening would receive when trying to form an opposition towards society's view of women. 

Who? What? Why?

After the reader is quite sure that he has discovered what Mrs. Pontellier is up to, and prides himself in recognizing what the awakening means for the character, there comes a moment when he realizes it still isn't clear why Mrs. Pontellier is searching for an awakening. Even though we, who have been raised in modern society, might not see any apparent reason to become isolated from society in search of a new sense of freedom, it is clear that Mrs. Pontellier was living under completely different circumstances.

There are some who assume that it was all because of love, claiming that a deep love for Robert "was the cause of all Edna's need for freedom, her awakening." This is, however, not the case. Robert is a distraction, a way for Mrs. Pontellier to prove to herself that she isn't tied to anything. In other words, Robert is a tool for her to accomplish her awakening more sure of herself.

Living in a world where woman oppression is constantly putting their freedom at stake to maintain the balance of society, Mrs. Pontellier doesn't need excuses like love for another man to justify her need of realization. She makes it quite clear that "she felt no interest in anything about her. The street, the children," even Robert, "were all part of an alien world." (105) Love was one of those things Edna decided to leave behind. Even though she still had greater feelings for Robert than she did for her husband, Edna's reason for awakening was more than just attachment to passing emotions. Mrs. Pontellier wanted to separate herself from the world, break the rules, defy the standards imposed on her long before she could even think for herself.

Robert might have helped Mrs. Pontellier, as he seemed to be the only one who understood her need of change. That doesn't mean he inspired it; he just didn't oppose it. Also, the passion for Robert had been instilled in Mrs. Pontellier once her marriage didn't give her enough to look up to. Yet, the need for an awakening come from way before. "At a very early period she had apprehended instinctively the dual life." (36) Mrs. Pontellier has been thinking about this since she was young, understanding the unfairness of how the world treated people like her and forming the desire to rebel against it. Robert was a key inspiration in beginning the much longed for awakening, but by no means was he the reason behind it.

Half Asleep

Mrs. Pontellier continues her road towards awakening, getting closer and closer as she begins to understand that no one can stop her. To the dismay of everyone around her, Mrs. Pontellier refrains herself from womanly duties and decides to pursue her own likings. It is under this pretense that Mrs. Pontellier starts calling herself an artist, showing her drawings to others and using her family and the maids as models. 

Even though Mrs. Pontellier felt she had wasted her life doing things for which "Fate had not fitted her," and she had been obligated to fulfill responsibilities decided for her before she was even alive, she wasn't willing to be pulled down by her past in her way to her future (past blog). Mrs. Pontellier regarded her past as “nothing, offer[ing] no lesson which she was willing to heed.” (90) The reader is then forced to accept that the character that Chopin wants us to learn from is the new Mrs. Pontellier. There is no “lesson” in the same character’s past persona. This can also be considered a call from Chopin to all the women living in oppression to leave their past behind and search for a new future.

In her road to awakening, Mrs. Pontellier seems to be doing quite well. Chopin has already told the reader that she made it. “She had been denied that which her impassioned, newly awakened being demanded.” (66) The title of the novella is The Awakening; it starts when Mrs. Pontellier isn’t “awake,” continues as she becomes aware of her sleepiness, and she has now reached the point where she considers herself an awakened soul. What now? If Mrs. Pontellier has already accomplished the point of her life and of the story, what else does the book have to offer us? Is she now going to create a sect to unite all women against society? Is she going to kill herself in honor of those who couldn’t live a worthy life? The reader is left with unanswered questions as Mrs. Pontellier reaches her desired state yet there is half of the book left.

 

We have known Mrs. Pontellier for feeling foreign to the world around her, but it is the first time in which she “had suddenly become antagonistic.” (105) Everything around her belonged to the same world, except her. Now she didn’t only feel like she didn’t belong in it, she also felt opposing to its ideas and its people. It is no longer okay for Chopin and for Mrs. Pontellier to watch the world reproachfully from the outside, it is necessary to take action against anything you don’t agree with. Maybe that is what the rest of the book will be about. Maybe Mrs. Pontellier will dedicate her free time towards fixing the laws of society that were imposed to her of which she doesn’t agree with.

An Ocean of Uncertainties

It is after the first 50 pages that the quote at the back of The Awakening is mentioned for the first time in the story. "She wanted to swim far out, where no woman had swum before." (p. 60) Even though the quote is featured as a summary because of its metaphorical meaning, when it appears in the story it is actually very literal. Mrs. Pontellier is facing the challenge of swimming "far out" into the ocean for the first time, because she had only splashed in the surface until now.

Before this epiphany, Mrs. Pontellier felt no control over "her body and her soul." She describes her purely automatic life as that which she does "unthinkingly, as she walks, moves, sits, stands, goes through the daily treadmill of a life which has been portioned to her." (p. 66) This image of life as a treadmill is very strong, as it is something that you use with a purpose but work as hard as you try you will never get anywhere new. The same happened to women in their daily lives; they always had something to do but when reminiscing about the past they found that they were caught in doing so much that they never truly did anything.

The Awakening is slowly becoming a very strong plead to the women of the late 19th century to get out of their "treadmill" and into a true and dignified life. It is noteworthy that only no "woman had ever swum before," implying that men had been allowed to swim "far out" and only women had been asked to stay in the shore with such a wide range of possibilities stretching out in front of them.

However, even Mrs. Pontellier has moments in which she wished she could just allow society to move her here and there without her having any responsibility to deal with. Even though she had been impulsively demonstrating her nonconformism with her society's plans for her life, Mrs. Pontellier found herself "not seeking refreshment or help form any source... she was blindly following whatever impulse moved her." (p. 67) Chopin shows that it might be easier to just accept the situation and go along with it, but depending on the end of the story, she could be pointing out that it is worth the try. The reader is left wondering what Mrs. Pontellier finally achieves as the story moves on to other points.

In a different observation, the story line of The Awakening hasn't exactly been very exciting until now, which is probably on purpose. To demonstrate the nonoccurrence of events in a woman's normal life and to avoid distracting the reader from the true argument at stake in the book, Kate Chopin kept things simple with the plot while still managing to make a very strong, feminist point.

An Inward Life that Questions

As the story progresses, the instances in which the reader realizes that this is not just a tale about a happy family start to make themselves more noticeable. There are random mentions of a way of thinking characteristic of dissatisfaction. While Mr. Pontellier seems to have nothing to criticize of society, Mrs. Pontellier is in need of relief.

It is made known to the reader that Mrs. Pontellier, at a very early age, had "apprehended instinctively the dual life - that outward existence which conforms, the inward life which questions." (p. 36) In a society where it is naturally accepted that women have to fulfill the roles they have always been required to do, no one expects any questioning. But Mrs. Pontellier refuses to conform inwardly, which in turn shows Kate Chopin's nonconformity. In 1899, when The Awakening was first published, there was an upheaval of criticism for the direct way in which Chopin shows women's oppression within marriage and their daily lives. Chopin is able to inspire the female reader to take action, to speak out about their situation, to question internally.

Chopin describes the female life as "a responsibility she had blindly assumed and for which Fate had not fitter her." (p. 44) Women's responsibilities had been decided well before this time period, so Chopin argues against accepting them any longer. It is not Mrs. Pontellier's place in the world to conform to what society asks of her, and she chooses to demonstrate this belief to obvious refusal to do simple things.

When Mrs. Pontellier is sitting outside the beach house at 1:00 a.m. with Robert, there is nothing but upright boycott keeping her out in the cold. Mr. Pontellier tries to knock some "sense" into her, accusing her it of being a "folly." (p. 65) Mrs. Pontellier is tired and cold enough to want to go it, but she decides to suffer through it in an attempt to show her discomfort with her current life.

But not even other women think well of Mrs. Pontellier's open opposition, as they tell each other "sometimes I am tempted to think that Mrs. Pontellier is capricious." (p. 61) This shows the controversy that may have arisen from the mere publishing of The Awakening, in which even women (the oppressed) were against a movement that could make their lives more worthwhile. It is difficult for one voice to fight against the apparent beliefs of a society, so Kate Chopin's book's importance lies on its ability to propose an alternative view.

A New Controversy

That's right, we have now begun a new book. The Awakening, by Kate Chopin, is a feminist book first published in 1899, which according to the book description was received with great controversy. It was uncommon for women to speak out in this time period, so that could explain the reaction. However, when seen from modern times, The Awakening is considered a very influential classic.

The story starts very low-key, set out to describe Mr. Pontellier in his daily occurrences. A small mention of his wife and his children bring a clearer view into his background, but there is not much description about his interactions with the people around him. Mr. Pontellier leaves the house one night and everything seems perfect, but it doesn't stay that way for long. Without much warning, the reader is faced with an ever-present issue. At night, when one of the children is diagnosed with a fever by his own father, and Mrs. Pontellier refuses to care much, Mr. Pontellier questions "If it was not a mother's place to look after her children, whose on earth was it?" (21) Man's opinion about women's place in society is then introduced to the reader. Mr. Pontellier is sure that the children had to be looked after by the mother, and his job was only to earn the money.

The reader isn't sure about the author's position in this debate, but it is probably going to be revealed later in the story. Most women accepted this ideal of how they should behave and what role they should fulfill, but it becomes apparent that Mrs. Pontellier has a problem with this when she finds herself facing "an indescribable oppression... [that] filled her whole being with a vague anguish." (22) The problem of woman's role in society is then present in the reader's mind for the rest of the reading, but Chopin stops talking directly about it as if wanting us to remember it when reading the story but not seeing only that.


The perfect woman according to Mr. Pontellier (and for all we know, according to Chopin too), is described in The Awakening as being those who "idolized their children, worship their husbands, and esteemed it a holy privilege to efface themselves as individuals and grow wings as ministering angels." (26) This obligates women to forget about their self needs and care only about being there for others. Comparing, then, Mrs. Pontellier with this image of perfection and saying that she was not like the others explains just how much her uncaring nature towards her children was frowned upon by society.


Mrs. Pontellier doesn't feel like she is like all the other "mother-women" living in Grand Isle. It seems as if until now she has done her best to fulfill her role in the most accepting way possible, but it now becomes apparent that she is looking for a change. In chapter VI, "Mrs. Pontellier was beginning to realize her position in the universe as a human being, and to recognize her relations as an individual to the world within and about her." (34) This quote is enough to suggest to the reader a change in character from the idle Mrs. Pontellier. We are now expecting to see the story develop through Mrs. Pontellier's defiance of society's plans for her life.