Nysiñe Ordoñez Blanco ’27
Edna Pontellier’s Awakening To Liberation
While chapter designations are within the prose of this essay, some in-text citations are absent from this article.
The Awakening by Kate Chopin is a historical fiction book published in 1899. Protagonist Edna Pontellier gains independence from being a mother and a wife in a French Creole environment. Edna is not like a stereotypical mother and wife; she doesn’t love her husband or her kids. The book examines topics of individuality, womanhood, and freedom. Despite Edna’s infidelity and neglect of her children, a central question forms: What does The Awakening say about womanhood? Ultimately, Chopin suggests that societal expectations of women, such as being a stay-at-home mother and an extroverted woman in society, are overwhelming, making Edna a relatable character to many women.
The Awakening focuses on the life of Edna Pontellier, who is trapped into the life of a wife and stay-at-home mom. In chapter one, Edna felt as if her husband, Leonce Pontellier, looked at her as if she was a “personal property which has suffered some damage.” Chopin in the first chapter reveals the theme of Edna feeling objectified in the roles of stay-at-home wife and mother. In chapter sixteen, Chopin writes, ‘‘I would give up the unessential; I would give my money, I would give my life for my children; but ’ wouldn’t give myself.” Edna believes that she doesn’t need to give up her whole being like other mothers would. Being a mother isn’t a part of her identity. In chapter seven, the narrator explains that Edna’s “marriage to Leonce Pontellier was purely an accident, in this respect resembling many other marriages which masquerade as the decrees of Fate.” Edna Pontellier did not get married out of love but out of pure convenience; Mr. Pontellier fell in love with her first, further proving that Mrs. Pontellier is not a stereotypical wife. In Farhadiba H. Khan’s article “Consolidation Through Rebellion in Kate Chopin’s The Awakening,” Khan writes that Mr. Pontellier believes that “a woman has a set of responsibilities, therefore Edna’s behavior is unacceptable to him because she does not represent the ideal cult of womanhood.” Edna is not fit to be a wife and a stay-at-home mother. She doesn’t fit the stereotype of a mother and wife which is unacceptable to Mr, Pontellier, and society.
Edna Pontellier also admits throughout the book that she isn’t a stereotypical mother or wife. When her children become sick with a fever in chapter three, she at first denies this when talking to her husband. But then he “reproached his wife with her inattention, her habitual neglect of the children. If it was not a mother’s place to look after children, whose on earth was it?” Mr. Pontellier had to emphasize that Edna was not a very motherly person. Edna’s kids knew not to go to her whenever they got hurt. The narrator wrote that “Mrs. Pontellier was not a mother-woman,” then goes into detail about what a mother-woman is saying is “protecting wings when any harm, real or imaginary, threatened their precious brood. They were women who idolized their children, worshiped their husbands, and esteemed it a holy privilege to efface themselves as individuals and grow wings as ministering angels.” The narrator then introduces Mrs. Pontellier’s foil and best friend Madam Ratignolle, a perfect mother woman. There are multiple examples in the beginning of the book alone that show Edna not being a proper mother. Devi Hellystia describes Edna Pontellier’s endeavors as the main character in a work of nineteenth-century liberal feminism, writing, “The novel is about Edna Pontellier, the woman trapped in the figure of a mother and wife.” Mrs. Pontellier is stuck in a society where it is only acceptable for women to be stay-at-home mothers and loyal wives. Edna compares herself to other women who are single and doesn’t want to relate to them, which leads to her feeling lost.
Megan P. Kaplon compares different female characters to Edna in her article “Kate Chopin’s The Awakening: Struggle Against Society and Nature,” writing, Adele Ratignolle is described as “ very proud of her title of mother, and one might say motherhood is what she was fated for.” Kaplon writes that Edna pities Adele and isn’t satisfied with being a mother. Adele Ratignolle is fashioned as a complete foil to Edna Pontellier. And, there is another female character to compare to Edna, Mademoiselle Reisz, whom Kaplon describes as a “woman devoid of motherly tendencies and sexuality. She is physically unappealing and seems to have no romantic past, present, or future.” Chopin creates this other character who does not want to be a wife or a mother and has no choice because of how she looks. Edna found herself comparing her desires to Mademoiselle Reisz and Adele Ratignolle and figured out that she didn’t want to be like either of them. Edna finds it hard to find the way she wants to live and still be accepted in society as the two women are, which then causes her to further ignore society’s expectations.
Edna Pontellier not wanting the responsibility of being a mother and a stay-at-home wife led her to not want to follow society’s expectations of her, and to in turn completely neglect them. Khan writes, “Chopin’s deliberation, in this sense, is not to condemn Edna’s rebellion in proclaiming her sexuality and seeking independence through the consolidation of her mind, body, and spirit, but rather to paint her as the ‘new woman’ who gains control and awareness of her sexual and artistic potentials.” Khan is saying that Edna isn’t only being rebellious but is also trying to gain control of her life and what she desires. Khan adds that Edna “must silence herself to live in society. Prelude to rebellion compared to true rebellion.” Edna is an example of pre-rebellion because she is not fully expressing herself in her Creole society, she is only neglecting the expectations, not rebelling against them.
Edna goes into detail about the characters’ life stories and goals and ends up comparing herself to them because their lifestyles are accepted in her society, while the way she wants to live her life isn’t. Kaplon writes, “Through Adele’s intimate touch, a level of affection that Edna is unfamiliar with, Edna is able to open herself to the possibilities of sexual arousal. After this potential has been brought to her attention, Edna cannot imagine herself living the asexual, artistic lifestyle of Mademoiselle Reisz.” Chopin makes it so that Madam Ratignolle is the perfect stay-at-home wife, and Mademoiselle Reisz is neither married nor a mother, and not looking to be any of those things. Khan writes, examining the origins of feminism and the Women’s Movement in the nineteenth century, “The New Woman phase of the Women’s Movement focused primarily on entirely “emancipating” women from the social expectations and conventions forced upon them by tradition” (198). Cruea adds, “New Woman asserted her right to sexuality and separated it from her public reputation” (201).
Edna is an example of the start of the “New Woman phase of the Women’s Movement since she wants to own her sexuality and doesn’t want to be tied down by social or traditional expectations. Due to Edna wanting to be sexually liberated and neglecting social expectations of her as a woman, she finds it hard to fit in any way. In”Gender Roles and Choices in The Awakening,” researchers note, “In a morbid way, by killing herself, Edna has made her stance. She is rejecting all the roles forced upon her by leaving her society in the most literal way.” Since Edna didn’t find a way to live happily in her society without getting criticized and overwhelmed, she took her life. In chapter twenty-nine of The Awakening, Edna Pontellier was able to get a separate house away from her children by getting a job when her husband is away. Edna even tried becoming masculine to see if she was satisfied with it. She wasn’t which led her to take her own life.
In conclusion, Edna took her own life due to the stresses of the societal expectations of women to embrace being a stay-at-home mother and a loyal wife. She tries getting a job and having how own space of sexual liberation, but she ultimately never feels satisfied. This book was banned only a couple of years after its release because of the expression of female sexual liberation. The dangers of the societal expectations of women drove Edna to mental instability and played a part in her becoming a threat to her own life.
Works Cited
Cruea, S. M. (2005). Changing ideals of womanhood during the nineteenth-century woman movement. The American Transcendental Quarterly, 19:187-204 Retrieved June, 16, 2022 from https://scholarworks.bgsu.edu/gsw_pub/1?utm_source=scholarworks.bgsu.edu%2Fgsw_pub%2F1&utm_medium=PDF&utm_campaign=PDFCoverPages
Chopin, Kate. The Awakening . Penguin Classics, 2018.
Kaplon, Megan P. “Kate Chopin’s The Awakening: Struggle Against Society and Nature.” Inquiries Journal/Student Pulse 4.07 (2012). <http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/a?id=657>
Khan, Farhadiba H. “Consolidation Through Rebellion in Kate Chopin’s The Awakening.” Journal of Language Teaching and Research , vol. 13, no. 6, 2022, pp. 1243–50, https://doi.org/10.17507/jltr.1306.12.