The Awakening
By Kate Chopin
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Kate Chopin was born in 1851 in St. Louis. Chopin’s Irish father was ambitious to make a success for himself and his young family in this newly burgeoning American city on the Mississippi River. On Chopin’s mother’s side, the French influence matched her father’s Irish ambition and spirit. It was the unique combination of her parents heritage after which personal character was developed. Kate’s father died while building a key link in the Pacific Railroad, when she was only four years old. After her father’s death, Kate was raised by a family of strong women: her mother, her grandmother, and her great grandmother. At the age of seventeen, Kate met her future husband Oscar. He was immediately fascinated by Chopin’s striking beauty and individualism when they met, and the two were soon married. Even though Kate was given numerous amounts of freedom by her new husband, she constantly rankled at being a woman in what was undeniably a man’s world. The Awakening brought Kate Chopin the attention of all major critics as well as the general American reading public. Her critics were outraged that Chopin had written about a women who not only had sexual urges and desires, but felt that it was her right to have those urges satisfied. Kate Chopin’s writings and all her characters are perceived as distinctively American, remarkably contemporary, and have achieved prominence and recognition far beyond their initial status as romantic, local color creations. Chopin passed away in 1904.
CHARACTERS
:EDNA PONTELLIER- A beautiful young woman of twenty-eight, she discovers during a summer vacation that she has led a pleasant, pampered married life, but that it has been a rigidly confined existence, and that her husband has always considered her to be his "property." She rebels and tries to find fulfillment for her physical and social drives. She sees no alternatives because no lifestyle in the 1890’s offers her an alternative to the restrictions of motherhood and marriage, so she commits suicide.
LEONCE PONTELLIER- Edna’s forty-year old husband; he has a prosperous brokerage business in New Orleans and expects his wife to follow a "mother’s role." He is considered to be "a perfect husband."
ROBERT LEBRUM- He begins an innocent relationship with Edna and flees to Mexico when he realizes that their friendship has turned to love.
ADELE RATIGNOLLE- Chopin’s example of the perfect Creole "mother-woman."
ALCEE AROBIN- He is known for his love affairs with vulnerable woman and attempts to pursue Edna.
MADEMOISELLE REISZ- She offers Edna an alternative to the role of being another "mother women." The old, unmarried woman has devoted her life to music and is perceived as unusual because of her outspoken views.
MADAME LEBRUM- She runs the Grand Isle resort and has two sons, Victor and Robert.
RAOUL and ETIENNE PONTELLIER- Edna’s and Leonce’s children. Edna is criticized for neglecting them.
DOCTOR MANDELET- A retired physician whom Leonce consults about his wife’s lack of interest in housekeeping and her notions about the rights of women.
SETTING
:Starts out on Grand Isle, a popular Creole resort, fifty miles south of New Orleans, and eventually moves back to the main part of New Orleans.
PLOT SUMMARY
:Edna Pontellier, a pretty young woman who is twenty eight years old, discovers during a summer vacation that she has led a pleasant, pampered married life, but that it has been a rigidly confined existence, and that her husband has always considered her to be property. She rebels and attempts to find fulfillment for her psychological, social, and sexual drives. She uses the fact that she has learned to swim on her own as a realization that she does not need men in society to help her accomplish difficult tasks. She stops taking her husband’s business appointments on Tuesdays, and eventually moves into her own house without the consult of her husband. She has intimate moments with both Robert Lebrum and Alcee Arobin. She even falls in love with Robert. Finally, she is frustrated because no lifestyle in the 1890’s offers her an alternative to the restrictions of motherhood and marriage. As a result, she commits suicide by traveling too deep into the ocean in which she first learned to swim.
SYMBOLS
:Edna = feminist
Edna’s Husband = sees her as property, and thinks that she is suppose to base her life around the children
Robert= Edna’s sign that she has other desires aside from what is expected by society
Art= Edna’a escape from society
THEMES
:Feminist movement® away from husband and children; experiencing other things in life; women, too, have sexual desires, needs, and expectations in relationships; self discovery