Chopin, Kate, The Awakening, Ware, Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Editions Limited, 1995, 117 pages
Reviewed by Ashley Pruett, Los Osos High School, Rancho Cucamonga, CA
In a rather simple and summed up story, Kate Chopin writes of a woman in her late twenties disregarding all of society's rules and fights off all inhibitions to become her own individual. Written with a setting in the late 1800s, Edna Pontellier, the protagonist, faces judgment from her French-influenced Lousiana home when she decides to give her life an extreme makeover. Society has set a guideline that women are solely to be homemakers and caretakers of their children, while men are to support the family financially. This restricts the actions and will of women profoundly.
Edna faces a feeling she has never dealt with before when she meets a young man by the name of Robert Lebrun at her summer home in Grand Isle. She begins to develop an attraction which turns into a love for Robert. The only problem with this situation is that Edna is a married woman and a mother to two sons. Edna feels very confined to a life she had not specifically chose to be her fate, and she fights often between the will of her soul and the responsibilities she holds maternally. Most of her friends are married with families as well, so Edna dares not to consult them on her situation. Upon the end of summer, however, Robert disappears from the plot for a spell, but not from Edna's heart and soul.
Once returning back to New Orleans with her family, Edna begins to debate and explore different options for her life- somewhat similar to a midlife transition. She realizes that women did not think so radically as she, and they wouldn't even dare to think of an affair with another man. But Edna is overcome with a feeling she had never experienced, not even when marrying Mr. Pontellier. This feeling, though she might not be fully aware of it, drives her story as one of the front runner's into the future feminist movement. Her thoughts and actions directly relate to the awareness and advancement of women's rights.
To a very minimum degree, Edna's experiences occur out of coincidence, which propel her objectives forward. She is well aware she is in the midst of fighting a battle against being in a role that she had not dreamed of for the rest of her life. Edna's coming into her own person, and away from her husband's control, enlightens readers to be an individual and that "perhaps it is better to wake up after all, even to suffer, rather than to remain a dupe to illusions all one's life."
-A. Pruett
I LOVED your review of this! I'm currently reading this book, and I just have a few questions about it:
ReplyDelete-When does the plot begin to pick up? (I'm at the part where Robert has just left for Mexico).
-Do you think that feminism is THE major theme in this book? Independence maybe?
-Do Edna and Robert end up getting together in the end? Her husband's kind of a jerk to her...
-Jillian D.
This is a great review! What makes her get that feeling that leads her into the feminist movement?
ReplyDelete-Jonathan S.
@Jillian D. Well thank you :) The plot is VERY slow...I had a difficult time finishing it even though it was a short read. But I would say the last 20 pages or so the plot gets interesting. The part where Robert just left is kind of dull but push through it because it is worth it (maybe the author wanted the reader to feel the kind of agony Edna was going through?). I believe feminism is the ultimate theme just because of the time era right before all of the women's rights movements. And Edna and Robert...I don't know if I should spoil it but I will say that Robert does come back and the two meet up again in a most unintended way.
ReplyDelete@Jonathan S. Which her...the author or Edna?
-Ashley Pruett
Reading The Awakening was also very slow for me. I got lost a lot because I couldn't concentrate. My favorite scene by far was when Edna tried to destroy her wedding ring. The ending was so tragic in that her children will have to grow up without a mother.
ReplyDeleteK. Lui