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THE INFLUENCE OF LOVE AND DEATH
IN THE CHARACTER OF EDNA PONTELLIER
AS DESCRIBED IN KATE CHOPIN’S
THE AWAKENING
AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS
Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree ofSarjana Sastra
in English Letters
By
FERI JANURIANTA
Student Number : 014214031
ENGLISH LETTERS STUDY PROGRAMME DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS
FACULTY OF LETTERS SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY
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A Sarjana SastraUndergraduate Thesis
THE INFLUENCE OF LOVE AND DEATH
IN THE CHARACTER OF EDNA PONTELLIER
AS DESCRIBED IN KATE CHOPIN’S
THE AWAKENING
By
FERI JANURIANTA
Student Number : 014214031
Approved by
Drs. Hirmawan Wijanarka, M.Hum August, 18 2009
Advisor
Dewi Widyastuti, S.Pd. M.Hum August, 18 2009
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A Sarjana SastraUndergraduate Thesis
THE INFLUENCE OF LOVE AND DEATH
IN THE CHARACTER OF EDNA PONTELLIER
AS DESCRIBED IN KATE CHOPIN’S
THE AWAKENING
By
FERI JANURIANTA
Student Number : 014214031
Was defended in front of Board of Examiners On
August 21, 2009 And Declared Acceptable
BOARD OF EXAMINERS
Name Signature
Chairman : Dr.Fr. B. Alip, M.Pd., M. A _____________________ Secretary : Drs. Hirmawan Wijanarka, M.Hum _____________________ Member 1 : Adventina Putranti, S.S. M.Hum _____________________ Member 2 : Drs. Hirmawan Wijanarka, M.Hum _____________________ Member 3 : Dewi Widyastuti, S.Pd. M.Hum _____________________
Yogyakarta, August 31, 2009 Faculty of Letters Sanata Dharma University
Dean
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Silence is the true friend
that never betrays.
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For My Beloved Daughter and Son;
Alban and Fathin
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LEMBAR PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN
PUBLIKASI KARYA ILMIAH UNTUK KEPENTINGAN AKADEMIS
Yang bertanda tangan di bawah ini, saya mahasiswa Universitas Sanata Dharma :
Nama : Feri Janurianta
NIM : 014214031
Demi pengembangan ilmu pengetahuan, saya memberikan kepada Perpustakaan Universitas Sanata Dharma, karya ilmiah saya yang berjudul :
THE INFLUENCE OF LOVE AND DEATH IN THE CHARACTER OF EDNA PONTELLIER AS DESCRIBED IN KATE CHOPIN’S THE AWAKENING.
beserta perangkat yang diperlukan (bila ada). Dengan demikian saya memberikan kepada Perpustakaan Universitas Sanata Dharma hak untuk menyimpan, mengalihkan dalam bentuk media lain, mengelolanya dalam bentuk pangkalan data, mendistribusikan secara terbatas, dan mempublikasikannya di internet atau media lain untuk kepentingan akademis tanpa perlu meminta ijin dari saya maupun memberikan royalty kepada saya selama tetap mencantumkan nama saya sebagai penulis.
Demikian pernyataan ini saya buat dengan sebenarnya. Dibuat di Yogyakarta
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to express my gratitude to all those who gave me the possibility to complete this thesis. First of all, my deepest gratitude is to my Lord who always loves me, and takes care of me everyday. I would also like to thank to my advisor, Drs. Hirmawan Wijanarka, M.Hum who gave and confirmed this permission and encouraged me to go ahead with my thesis. For my Co-Advisor,
Dewi Widyastuti, S.Pd. M.Hum and my reader, Adventina Putranti, S.S. M.Hum., thank you for all your suggestions.
For my beloved family, thank you for your love, care and guidance. I am so grateful for your love accompanying me in sadness and happiness. The last, I am also very grateful to everyone, especially my friends of English Letters ‘01
whose help, stimulating suggestions and encouragement helped me in all the time of research for and writing of this thesis.
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A. Background of the Study... 1
B. Problem Formulation... 4
C. Objectives of the Study ... 5
D. Definition of Terms ... 5
CHAPTER II THEORETICAL REVIEW... 7
A. Review of Related Studies ... 7
B. Review of Related Theories ... 9
1. Character and Characterization ... 9
a. Personal Description... 9
b. Character as Seen by Other Character(s) ... 9
c. Speech ... 10
d. Past Life ... 10
e. Conversation of Others... 10
f. The Character’s Reactions to Various Situations and Events.. 10
g. Direct Comments of the Author... 10
h. Thoughts... 11
i. Mannerisms... 11
2. Plot and Character Development ... 12
C. Theoretical Framework ... 14
CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY... 15
A. Object of the Study... 15
B. Approach of the Study ... 16
C. Method of the Study... 18
CHAPTER IV ANALYSIS... 20
A. General Characterization of Major Characters ofThe Awakening 20 B. Plot Structure ofThe Awakening... 27
C. The Influence of Love on Edna’s Character Development that Leads to her Death ... 51
CHAPTER V CONCLUSION... 55
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ABSTRACT
FERI JANURIANTA (2009). The Influence of Love and Death in the Character of Edna Pontellier as Described in Kate Chopin’s The Awakening. Yogyakarta: Department of English Letters, Faculty of Letters, Sanata Dharma University.
This study is a study of character development of the heroine in Kate Chopin's short novel The Awakening. This short novel is chosen as the object of this study, first, because of its great literariness and the controversies it has always caused ever since it was published for the first time in 1899. The second reason for choosing this novel is that, even though its plot is developed in a common pattern, the main character's self-development is peculiarly interesting and, third, the ending is unusual in the way the heroine commits suicide and not ends happily. It is hypothesized that this development and end have something to do with love as the main aspect in the heroine's experiences throughout the story.
For those reasons, the writer formulated the problems into the followings . They were: (1) How does the general characterization of the major characters of The Awakening? (2) How does the plot structure on the story describe the character development of Edna Pontellier? (3) How does Edna’s love influence the development of her character throughout the story and lead to her death/suicide?
The analysis employs formalistic approach, which deals only with the intrinsic elements of the story, with a particular emphases in character, characterization, plot, and character development. The discussion is conducted along the lines of plot outline, with more elaborate explanation on the process undergone by Edna Pontellier as the main character, in the light of the influences that other major characters--especially Robert Lebrun and his love--have on Edna Pontellier. The emphasis is put on Edna Pontellier, and the allusion to other characters is only made as far as their contribution to the protagonist's character development.
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ABSTRAK
FERI JANURIANTA (2009). The Influence of Love and Death in the Character of Edna Pontellier as Described in Kate Chopin’s The Awakening. Yogyakarta: Department of English Letters, Faculty of Letters, Sanata Dharma University.
Studi ini adalah sebuah kajian tentang perkembangan karakter tokoh utama dalamThe Awakening,sebuah novel pendek karya Kate Chopin. Novel pendek ini dipilih sebagai objek kajian ini, pertama, karena nilai sastranya yang tinggi dan karena novel ini sudah menimbulkan begitu banyak kontroversi sejak pertama kali diterbitkan pada tahun 1899. Alasan kedua mengapa penulis memilih novel ini adalah bahwa, meskipun alurnya dibangun dalam pola yang umum dan sederhana, perkembangan karakter tokoh utamanya amat sangat menarik, dan, ketiga, akhir cerita ini sangat tidak biasa dalam hal bahwa tokoh-utama wanitanya bunuh diri, alih-alih berakhir bahagia. Diduga, perkembangan karakter tokoh yang demikian itu erat kaitannya dengan cinta sebagai aspek utama dalam pengalaman-pengalaman sang tokoh utama sepanjang cerita tersebut.
Karena alasan tersebut, penulis memformulasikannya menjadi permasalahan-permasalahan berikut: (1) Bagaimana karakterisasi secara umum akan karakter-karakter utama yang ada dalam The Awakening? (2) Bagaimana Struktur plot cerita menggambarkan perkembangan karakter dari Edna Pontellier? (3) Bagaimana pengaruh cinta Edna mempengaruhi perkembangan karakternya dalam cerita dan mendorongnya kedalam bunuh diri?
Analisis dalam kajian ini menggunakan pendekatan formalistik, yang hanya berurusan dengan unsur-unsur intrinsik karya sastra ini, dengan penekanan khusus pada tokoh, penokohan, alur cerita dan perkembangan karakter tokoh utamanya. Pembahasannya dilakukan mengikuti garis besar alur cerita, dengan penjelasan lebih mendalam pada proses yang dijalani oleh Edna Pontellier sebagai tokoh utamanya, di bawah pengaruh tokoh-tokoh penting lainnya dalam cerita tersebut--khususnya tokoh Robert Lebrun dan cintanya--terhadap Edna Pontellier. Tokoh Edna Pontellier menjadi fokus utama pembahasan, dan tokoh-tokoh lain disinggung hanya sebatas pengaruh mereka terhadap perkembangan karakter tokoh protagonis ini.
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
A. Background of the Study
Literary work is one media for human being to express their feeling, ideas, thoughts and also their experiences. By reading literary work, people or the readers can understand about the author’s ideas, thoughts and experiences through the literary work itself. After reading the author’s literary work, the readers not only can able to understand the author’s ideas, thoughts and experiences, but also the readers can also to analyze more deeper about the intrinsic elements in the literary work, that is written by the author. In this thesis, the writer thinks that understanding about the intrinsic element is very important in order to help the writers and also the readers to understand deeper about the story.
The period of the long 1800s in American social life was marked with atension between the old and the new, the traditional and the modern. The industrialization, urbanization and changing social norms of the turn of the century all contributed to the fact that life was changing, not only for American men but also for the women. The Industrial Revolution, for example, transformed handicrafts, which woman had always done in their homes, into a machine-powered, mass-produced industry. This meant that lower-class women could earn wages as factory workers and this circumstance signaled the beginning of their independence—that somehow detached them for their basic domesticity—even though the conditions were hazardous, the pay was very low, and their income
was legally controlled by their husbands or fathers. Moreover, as one may expect of a social condition in transition such as the nineteenth–century Americans, middle- and upper-class women were still expected to stay at home as idle, decorative symbols of their husbands' wealth. They were, as Virginia Woolf termed it, expected to be angels in the house. They were pregnant frequently due to the restrictions on birth control, they cared for their homes, husbands, and children, played music, sang, or drew to enhance the charm of their homes and to reflect well on their husbands. Wives were possessions, cared for and displayed, who often brought a dowry or inherited wealth to a marriage. They were expected to subordinate their needs to their husbands’ wishes (Wyatt, 1995; Culley, 1976:117-119). All these circumstances brought significant influences to social, political and cultural life of the society, and, in particular, its literary products.
the artistry of the writing. Still, newspapers and magazines of the day were filled with such comments as "it is not a healthy book," "sex fiction," "the purport of the story can hardly be described in language fit for publication," "we are well satisfied when Mrs. Pontellier deliberately swims out to her death," "an essentially vulgar story," and "unhealthy introspective and morbid."
The Awakening(first published in 1899 by Herbert S Stone and Co.) itself was a story written between 1897 and 1899 while the authoress was living in St. Louis, a time when the Industrial Revolution and the feminist movement were beginning to emerge yet were still overshadowed by the prevailing attitudes of the nineteenth century. Narrated in a third-person perspective by an anonymous narrator, it could be read as a story of female independence and sexual and emotional awareness symbolized in its heroine’s awakening, a theme that still resided within the society’s taboo. For the most part, the tone is objective, although it occasionally reveals support for whatever the tragic heroine of the story thought and did.
In fact, death was a standard retribution for women who committed adultery. Gustave Flaubert, for example, wrote Madame Bovary in 1857 and his heroine, Emma, killed herself after a story much like Edna's.The Awakeningitself has been termed a 'Creole Bovary' by some. In 1875, Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy was published; Anna throws herself under a train after an ill-fated romance. Maggie Tulliver, in Mill on the Flossby George Eliot, actually drowns herself. That novel was published in 1860. In 1891, Thomas Hardy wrote Tess of the D'Urbervilles and Tess was killed after she committed an act colored with suicidal intent (Wyatt, 1995; Koloski, 2009).
It is for this reason that this study chooses Kate Chopin’s The Awakening as its object of scrutiny.
B. Problem Formulation
Bearing in mind how dense the discourses of love and death color the whole narrative of Kate Chopin’s The Awakening and, particularly, influence the characteristic development of its tragic heroine, Edna Pontellier, this study is therefore undertaken to address the following problems or questions:
1. How does the general characterization of the major characters of The Awakening?
2. How does the plot structure on the story describe the character development of Edna Pontellier?
In the context of this thesis, the general characterization of the major characters serves as the context in which Edna Pontellier’s character development takes place throughout the story. Moreover, since the process of a character’s development takes place along a certain plot structure, thus a discussion on plot structure of the story is taken up as well. In this thesis, the plot is firstly described in general based on the very commonly-known plot outline, and, subsequently, it is elaborated further in a more detailed discussion on the development of Edna Pontellier’s character under the hypothesized influence of Robert Lebrun’s love.
C. Objectives of the Study
Along the lines of the above-mentioned problem formulation, the objectives of the study are thus set up. They are,first, to describe the development of Edna Pontellier’s character throughout the narrative; and, second, to account for the way the heroine’s eros leads her to a tragic thanatos, i.e. committing suicide.
D. Definition of Terms
In analyzing this story, there are some definitions of terms that will be helpful for the writer to understand and to analyze the story.
1. Characters
action” (Abrams, 1981:20). It means that the character is the person presented in a dramatic or narrative work that is endowed with moral and dispositional qualities that are express id the dialogue and action.
2. Major Character
According to Stanton in An Introduction to Fiction, a central or major character is a character that becomes the center of the other character and dominates the whole story. This character is presented frequently in the story and relevant to every event in the story and usually every event causes some change either in the central character or in our attitude toward the central character itself (Stanton, 1965: 17-18)
3. Minor Character
CHAPTER II
THEORETICAL REVIEW
This chapter is divided into three sections. Section A provides a review on related studies, in which some criticisms and studies by other writers and critics on Kate Chopin’s The Awakening are given a mention. Section B constitutes a review on related theories, in which those concepts fundamental to further discussion on the object of this study are explored concisely. This section comprises the important concepts on character and characterization, and of plot and character development. The last section of this chapter provides the theoretical framework, within which the previously mentioned concepts are described as contributing to the analysis of the novel.
A. Review of Related Studies
In her preface to the text of the novel, Culley relates that when published for the first time in 1899 by Herbert S Stone and Co. of Chicago,The Awakening was met with harsh criticism and the short novel was removed from the library shelves in St. Louis. Chopin herself was refused membership in the St. Louis Fine Arts Club because of her novel, despite the fact that she had already been a well-known author of over a hundred stories, sketches, and essays, all of which had appeared in the popular and literary magazines of her days (Culley, 1976: vii). From that time on, this outstanding novel has always been provoking an everlasting controversy.
This long controversy has been involving many critics of various perspectives of pros and cons. As one may expect, in its early days the novel was subject to hostile criticism as it voiced a brand new concerns in woman’s freedom and sexual expression, something alien to its times. One among the many early critics of this vein was CL Deyo, who noted that the novel was ‘sad and mad and bad’ (Culley, 1976: 143). Percival Pollard’s ‘The Unlikely Awakening of a Married Woman’, published in his Their Day in Court by Neale Publishing in 1909 (Culley, 1976: 160-2), also showed similar hostility. In 1952, however, Van Wyck Brooks wrote “But there was one novel of the nineties in the South that should have been remembered, one small perfect book that mattered more than the whole life-work of many a prolific writer” (Culley, 1976: 143). This statement by Brook signaled the work’s return to critical favor and acclaim, although by no means ended the controversy. In our own times, The Awakening is perhaps one among the most productive objects of literary criticism and study. A browse to major literary websites as well as personal blogs shows nearly countless number of studies on this particular novel.
B. Review of Related Theories
This section deals with the concepts which comprise the fundamentals of the analysis of this study. They are the concepts of character and characterization, and of plot and character development. The concepts are considered as inseparable from each other in the discussion of the love and death of Edna Pontellier in the course of her awakening as described in Kate Chopin’s The Awakening.
1. Character and Characterization
Murphy in Understanding Unseen : Introduction to English Poetry and the English Novel for Overseas Studentsstates there are some ways of the author can make the readers understand about the characters on the story. The ways of the author to make his or her characters understandable are:
a. Personal Description
The author can describe the person’s appearance and clothes in the story. The author describes what the characters are like and tells the readers the details of the person characters’ appearance such as the face, skin colors, eyes, hair and the clothing.
b. Character as Seen by Other Character(s)
c. Speech
The author can give the readers an insight into the character of one of the persons in the story through what that person says. Whenever a person speaks, whenever he is in conversation with another, whenever he put forward an opinion, he is giving the readers clue to his character.
d. Past Life
By letting the reader learn something about a person’s past life, the author can give the readers a clue to events that have helped to shape the person’s character. This can be done by direct comment by the author, though the person’s thoughts, through the person’s thoughts, through his conversation or through the medium of another person.
e. Conversation of Other Characters
The author can give the readers’ clues to a person’s character trough the conversations of other people and the things they say about the character itself. The clues that the readers have, comes from the people who talk about and the thing they say to the character of the person who spoken about.
f. The Character’s Reactions to Various Situations and Events
The author can also give the readers a clue to a person’s characters by letting the readers know how that person reacts to various situations and events. So through this reaction, the readers can understand the mental and moral qualities of the person in the story.
g. Direct Comment of the Author
h. Thoughts
The author can give the readers direct knowledge of what a person in the story is thinking about. Here, the author is able to do what the author his or herself cannot do in the real life. The author also can tell the readers what different people are thinking.
i. Mannerisms
The author can describe a person’s mannerisms, habits or idiosyncrasies, which may also tell us something about his character (Murphy, 1972:160-173).
Characters are also the persons presented in works of narrative or who convey their personal qualities through dialogue and action by which the reader or audience understands their thoughts, feelings, intentions and motives. Characters either remain stable in their attitudes throughout a work (static characters) or undergo personal development and change, whether through a gradual process or a crisis (dynamic characters); but in any case they usually remain consistent in their basic nature.
A flat character (also known as a type, or a two-dimensional character) is defined by a single quality without much individualizing detail.A round character is a complex individual incapable of being easily defined. The degree to which characters are given roundness and individual complexity depends upon their function in the plot--some only need to be seen at a distance, like strangers or acquaintances, rather than known intimately.
particular concept. To follow Abrams in his A Glossary of Literary Terms, characters are conceived as :
the persons presented in a dramatic or narrative work, who are interpreted by the reader as being endowed with moral and dispositional qualities that are expressed in what they say (the dialogue) and what they do (the action). The grounds in a character’s temperament and moral nature of his [or her] speech and actions constitute his [or her] motivation. (Abrams, 1981: 20-22).
Abrams distinguishes characters further into the so-called static and dynamic characters, relating that some characters may remain ‘stable’ or unchanged in his/her outlook and dispositions from beginning to the end of the work; whereas some others may undergo a radical change, either through a gradual development or as a result of an extreme crisis (Abrams, 1981:20).
In the context of this study, the concept of dynamic character is adopted and applied to Edna Pontellier, the heroine of The Awakening, whose characterization is conceived in the sense that Holman and Harmon propose in theirA Handbook to Literature,i.e.as the creation of images of imaginary persons so credible that they exist for the reader as real within the limits of the fiction or literary work (Holman and Harmon, 1972: 90-93). In the sense of the dynamics of the character and story, the narrative certainly progresses along the line of a certain plot pattern, and the concepts of plot and character development are explored briefly below.
2. Plot and Character Development
This difference in emphasis has long been persisting, but in the context of this study, the concept of plot is understood in the sense that Ronald S Crane (in Holman and Harmon, 1972: 397) introduce. They relate that
[….] a given plot is a function of the particular correlation among…three variables, which the completed work is calculated to establish, consistently and progressively, in our minds. These variables are (1) the general estimate we are induced to form…of the moral character and deserts of the hero… (2) the judgments we are led similarly to make about the nature of the events that actually befall the hero…as having either painful or pleasurable consequences for him…permanently or temporarily; and (3) the opinions we are made to entertain concerning the degree and kind of his responsibility for what happens to him.
The above quotation indicates that plot is always in very close relation with character development. This is particularly true with a dynamic character that experiences changes in her/his nature as the narrative progresses.
In the realization of a character development as such, there are a great variety of plot forms available. As Abrams notes in his A Glossary of Literary Terms, some plots forms are designed to achieve tragic effects, whereas others are
done to come to a comic, romantic, or satiric end (Abrams, 1981:137).
All of the concepts of character and characterization, and of plot and character development as delineated in this section are further put into a theoretical framework as follows.
C. Theoretical Framework
This section delineates the way the above-mentioned concepts contribute to the analysis of the novel and to the findings of the answers to the questions as stated in the problem formulation of the prior chapter.
The concepts of character and characterization are useful in the attempt to understand the character of the novel’s protagonist, as the focus of this study, whereas those of plot and character development are essential to the understanding of the flow of the narrative and the protagonist’s character changes throughout the story. By means of the application of the concepts on the story, the study will hopefully come to the answers to the questions of, first, how Edna Pontellier’s character develops throughout Kate Chopin’s The Awakening; and, secondly, how Edna’s love influences the development of her character throughout the story and lead to her death/suicide?
CHAPTER III
METHODOLOGY
A. Object of the Study
The Awakening is undoubtedly the most famous of Kate Chopin’s literary works, due to the controversy it has caused ever since the first time it was published in 1899 by Herbert S Stone and Co. of Chicago. This novelette was reprinted in 1906 by Duffield of New York, but then it went out of print and remained so for more than fifty years in the country. As the object of this study, the authoritative text of the novelette as obtained from the 1976’s edition of Margaret Culley’s (ed.) The Awakening: An Authoritative Text, Contexts, Criticism by WW Norton & Company (New York) is used. The text is divided into thirty-nine short chapters and runs up to 111 pages.
The Awakening belongs to the genre of bildungsroman (novel of intellectual, spiritual or moral evolution) and shares elements of and is heavily influenced by the local color. Using English with frequent use of French, this short novel was written between 1897 and 1899 while Chopin was living in St. Louis. It employs an anonymous third-person narrator, which is frequently felt as sympathizing for and supporting personally of the protagonist and as aligning with the authoress herself, even if for the most part, the tone of the whole story is objective. Taken as a whole, however, the story reveals a support for woman’s independence and sexual and emotional awareness symbolized in Edna's awakening.
The novel opens on Grand Isle, a popular summer vacation spot for wealthy Creoles from New Orleans. The second half of the novel is set in New Orleans, mainly in the Quartier Français, or French Quarter.
The Awakeningis a short by , first published in . It is widely considered to be a precursor to . The novel chronicles the life of Edna Pontellier, the book’s , as she examines her happiness, role as a mother, and place in society. The novel is commonly studied to review issues, and discover underlying controversies, as well as the reasons why Chopin chose to include these issues in her novel. It has also been condemned for its overwhelming use of complex sexual , which caused a major uproar when the novel was first published.
By exploring Edna's life and death, Chopin was breaking down barriers, challenging beliefs and conceptions of marriage, love, happiness, and even the very presence of being. After the uproar that ended Chopin's career, she was banned from an arts club and she lost friends. Although there is some debate about how serious the "book banning" of The Awakeningreally was, it is certain that the book and its author were almost forgotten. Rediscovered in the 1960s and 1970s, Chopin's scandalous novel is now considered an important classic.
B. Approach of the Study
literary work without taking into consideration those factors extraneous of the work itself. The focus of such a study is on the content—or part(s) of the content—of the work itself (Rohrberger and Woods, 1971: 27).
Another source, as mentioned in Literature: Reading and Writing The Human Experience; 7thEdition by Richard Abcarian and Marvin Klotz.
For the formalist, the work exists independently of any particularly reader. The work is a structured and formal aesthetic object comprising such elements as symbol, image, and sound patterns. Political, biographical or historical considerations not embodied in the work itself are irrelevant. ( Abcarian and Klotz, 1998: 1372)
Rohrberger and Woods in the bookReading and Writing about Literature also mentioned that formalistic approach only examines the novel, play, or short story without giving the external factors from these literary works, such as biography, sociology, or the literary history. It focuses on the content of the work itself (Rohrberger and Woods, 1971:27). So, the formalistic approach, which is used to analyze this novel, is an approach that only analyzes the intrinsic elements of the novel, play or short story such as character, and plot. The intrinsic elements are the basic element in this approach, so the intrinsic elements are important for this approach of study.
This approach is adopted in this study since it provides a fairly simple analytical guideline which shall result in the clear findings describing the protagonist’s character development under the influence of her (newly found) sexual love that finally leads her to the suicide.
C. Method of the Study
This study makes use of library research, with Kate Chopin’s novel The Awakeningbeing the main source of the data to be analyzed, and other printed and on-line materials being the secondary and supporting ones.
The research is conducted in several steps. First, the technical reading of the short novel as the fundamental, preliminary step before turning to further analysis. As the object of this study, the authoritative text of the novelette as obtained from the 1976’s edition of Margaret Culley’s (ed.) The Awakening: An Authoritative Text, Contexts, Criticismby W.W. Norton & Company (New York) is used. The reading is conducted, secondly, to recognize the data, particularly those dealing with the character, characterization, and character development of Edna Pontellier, the heroine of the story as reflected in the narrative’s plot. The resultant plot overview is subsequently analyzed in the light of the influence of love of the female protagonist on her character development, before this study finally concludes with the answers to its questions.
CHAPTER IV ANALYSIS
This chapter deals, first, with the discussion on the general characterization of the main characters of The Awakening. Secondly, the plot overview and pattern are explored before it finally comes, third, to the core discussion on love and death in the course of the Edna Pontellier’s awakening.
A. General Characterization of the Major Characters ofThe Awakening
The Awakening involves many characters, some are major, and some others are minor. Besides such minor characters as Doctor Mandelet, The Colonel, Victor Lebrun, Lady in Black, Etienne and Raoul Pontellier and some others, the followings are the main characters constituting the focus of the story and the analysis of this study. Other than Edna herself as the protagonist, the other major characters here are conceived so for their contributions to the protagonist’s course of love and awakening that finally leads her to death by committing suicide. To maintain the focus of the analysis to come, only Edna Pontellier, Robert Lebrun, Mademoiselle Reisz, Adele Ratignolle, Leonce Pontellier, and Alcee Arobin are taken into consideration; Edna, for her position as the protagonist of the story; Robert Lebrun as he represents the greatest influence that affects Edna in her awakening; Mademoiselle Reisz as she serves as the model based on whom Edna attempt to achieve her self-actualization; whereas Adele Ratignolle, as she represents a typical Victorian Creole woman as well as an embodiment of the
society’s conventions, especially on the issue of woman. In what follows, each of the major characters is overviewed generally in terms of her/his characterization, which includes his/her respective role(s) and influence on each other and the way she/he develops throughout the story. The general account on the characterization of the novel’s main characters to follow is taken and understood contextually throughout the text, and specific references to any feature of the characters in this general overview are not made available. However, a significant number of supporting quotations from the text are shown in some detail in Number 2 in Section B.
1. Edna Pontellier
(re-)open her perspective on herself and Robert's love, in particular, triggers in her conscience a new self-consciousness of being herself.
The course of her character development is represented in the following quotations from the novel. At the initial phase of the development, she is 'awakened' by a new consciousness of self-identity that has long disappeared before:
She perceived that her will had blazed up, stubborn and resistant. She could not at that moment have done other than denied and resisted. She wondered if her husband had ever spoken to her like that before, and if she had submitted to his command. Of course she had; she remembered that she had. But she could not realize why or how she should have yielded, feeling as she then did. (Chopin in Culley, 1976:53).
The next phase in her character development testifies to her newly-found independence that drives her into deciding on starting a new independent life of her own in her own place and bearing her own very identity as a free woman.
The pigeon-house pleased her. It at once assumed the intimate character of a home, while she herself invested it with a charm which it reflected like a warm glow. There was with her a feeling of having descended in the social scale, with a corresponding sense of having risen in the spiritual. Every step which she took toward relieving herself from obligations added to her strength and expansion as an individual. She began to look with her own eyes; to see and to apprehend the deeper undercurrents of life. No longer was she content to “feed upon opinion” when her own soul had invited her. (Chopin in Culley, 1976: 93).
“You have been a very, very foolish boy, wasting your time dreaming of impossible things ..[…]. I am no longer Mr. Pontellier’s possessions to dispose of or not. I give myself where I choose…” (Chopin in Culley, 1976: 106-7).
Tragically, Edna's awakenings isolate her from others and ultimately lead her to a state of total solitude and finally to committing suicide.
In short, 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. This may seem like a ponderous weight of wisdom to descend upon the soul of a young woman of twenty-eight— perhaps more wisdom than the Holy Ghost is usually pleased to vouchsafe to any woman.
But the beginning of things, of a world especially, is necessarily vague, tangled, chaotic, and exceedingly disturbing. How few of us ever emerge from such beginning! How many souls perish in its tumult! The voice of the sea is seductive; never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander for a spell in abysses of solitude; to lose itself in mazes of inward contemplation.
The voice of the sea speaks to the soul. The touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace. (Chopin in Culley, 1976:23)
2. Adèle Ratignolle
that have for so long been confining her in her domestic life with her husband and children. The inner burden Edna suffers from and the great difference in disposition between Edna and Madame Ratignolle is obvious in the following excerpt:
It did not strike her as in the least grotesque that she should be making of Robert the object of conversation and leading her husband to speak of him. The sentiment which she entertained for Robert in no way resembled that which she felt for her husband, or had ever felt, or ever expected to feel. She had all her life long been accustomed to harbor thoughts and emotions which never voiced themselves. They had never taken the form of struggles. They belonged to her and were her own, and she entertained the conviction that she had a right to them and that they concerned no one but herself. Edna had once told Madame Ratignolle that she would never sacrifice herself for her children, or for any one. Then had followed a rather heated argument; the two women did not appear to understand each other or to be talking the same language. Edna tried to appease her friend, to explain:
“I would give up the unessential; I would give my money, I would give my life for my children; but I wouldn’t give myself. I can’t make it more clear; it’s only something which I am beginning to comprehend, which is revealing itself to me”.
“I don’t know what you would call the essential, or what you mean by the unessential,” said Madame Ratignolle, cheerfully; “but a woman who would give her life for her children could do no more than that—your Bible tells you so. I’m sure I couldn’t do more than that”. (Chopin in Culley, 1976:47-8).
3. Mademoiselle Reisz
companionship. The latter warns Edna that she must be brave if she wishes to be an artist—that an artist must have a courageous and defiant soul.
[…] How Mademoiselle Reisz would have laughed, perhaps sneered, if she knew! “And you cal yourself an artist! What pretensions, Madame! The srtist must possess the courageous soul that dares and defies.” (Chopin in Culley, 1976:114)
Mademoiselle Reisz is the only character in the novel who knows of the love between Robert and Edna, and she, thus, serves as a true confidante for Edna despite their considerably different personalities (see Chapter XVI). Mademoiselle Reisz is also a foil for Edna's other close female friend, Adèle Ratignolle, who epitomizes the conventional and socially acceptable woman of the late nineteenth century.
4. Robert Lebrun
Edna receives from other female characters, is the major and strongest driving force behind her awakening and eventual suicide.
The trouble in their relationship is inferable from the following quotations: “I came back full of vague, mad intentions. And when I got here….” “When you got here you never came near me!” She was still caressing his cheek.
“I realized what a cur I was to dream of such a thing, even if you had been willing”.
She took his face between his hands and looked into it as if she would never withdraw her eyes more. She kissed him on the forehead, the eyes, the cheeks, and the lips.
“You have been a very, very foolish boy, wasting your time dreaming of impossible things ..[…]. I am no longer Mr. Pontellier’s possessions to dispose of or not. I give myself where I choose…” (Chopin in Culley, 1976: 106-7).
5. Alcée Arobin
The seductive, charming, and forthright Alcée Arobin is the Don Juan of the New Orleans Creole community. Arobin enjoys making conquests out of married women, and he becomes Edna's lover while her husband is on a business trip to New York. Although Robert Lebrun is the man whom Edna truly loves, Arobin satisfies Edna's physical urges while Robert is in Mexico. Throughout their passionate affair, Edna retains authority and never allows Alcée to own or control her. In Arobin Edna finds the articulation of her eros, that serves as a further catalyst to her attempting at free (i.e. extramarital) sex and self-expression, but neither Arobin, Robert nor Leonce is able to take control of Edna’s life.
6. Léonce Pontellier
Léonce Pontellier, a forty-year-old, wealthy New Orleans businessman, is Edna's husband. Although he loves Edna and his sons, he spends little time with them because he is often away on business or with his friends. Very concerned with social appearances, Léonce wishes Edna to continue the practices expected of New Orleans women despite her obvious distaste for them. He treats Edna with love and kindness, but their relationship lacks passion and excitement, and he knows very little of his wife's true feelings and emotions.
Mr. Pontellier had been a rather courteous husband so long as he met a certain tacit submissiveness in his wife. But her new and unexpected line of conduct completely bewildered him. It shocked him. Then her absolute disregard for her duties as a wife angered him. When Mr. Pontellier became rude, Edna grew insolent. She had resolved never to take another step backward. (Chopin in Culley, 1976: 57).
“It sometimes entered Mr. Pontellier’s mind to wonder if his wife were not growing a little unbalanced mentally. He could see plainly that she was not herself. That is, he could not see that she was becoming herself and daily casting aside that fictitious self which we assume like a garment with which to appear to the world.” (Chopin in Culley, 1976:57).
B. Plot Structure ofThe Awakening
In what follows, the plot outline is first exposed based on the traditional plot structure of exposition, major conflict, rising action, climax, and falling action; and,second, the whole story is reviewed in section-units. The section-units represent certain thematic unit involved in the process of Edna Pontellier’s awakening throughout the story and it is in this review that the course of Edna’s character development and influences of love on her self- and sexual-awakening cast into relieve.
1. Exposition
The story opens in the late 1800s in Grand Isle, a summer holiday resort popular with the wealthy inhabitants of nearby New Orleans. Edna Pontellier, the protagonist or heroine of the story, is vacationing with her husband, Léonce, and their two sons at the cottages of Madame Lebrun, which houses rich Creoles from the French Quarter. Léonce is kind and loving but preoccupied with his work. His frequent business-related absences mark his domestic life with Edna. Consequently, Edna spends most of her time with her friend Adèle Ratignolle, a married Creole who epitomizes womanly elegance and charm. Through her relationship with Adèle, Edna learns a great deal about freedom of expression. Because Creole women were expected and assumed to be chaste, they could behave in a forthright and unreserved manner.
2. Major Conflict
requires a married woman to subvert her own needs to those of her husband and children. This major conflict in Edna self-development has begun ever since she comes to her marriage with Leonce Pontellier and gives him two sons. This long-standing inner-conflict in Edna has been thrown out of balance since she meets Robert Lebrun and gets involved in love with him.
3. Rising Action
While Edna spends her vacation at Grand Isle, several events initiate her awakening. Her open conversations with Adèle remind her of her long-repressed passions; Robert Lebrun's flirtations cause her to desire more autonomy from her husband; and Mademoiselle Reisz's piano playing serves as artistic inspiration for her. At Grand Isle, Edna swims in the ocean for the first time, giving her the courage she needs to start her journey of self-understanding and self-fulfillment, while also strengthening her sense of solitude and loneliness. This circumstance in her leads certainly to the cliex of her course of self-awakening.
4. Climax
5. Falling Action
The generally accepted climax of the novel is Edna's suicide at the end of the novel. In this sense, there is no falling action. An alternative reading would suggest that the falling action is Edna's liberated and defiant behavior following her initial physical act of indiscretion, which is her affair with Arobin.
This plot outline is further elaborated below as to come to the understanding of the whole process Edna Pontellier goes through to her self- and sexual awakenings that finally leads her to death.
C. Edna Pontellier’s Character Development
Many of Kate Chopin's other stories feature passionate, unconventional female protagonists, but none presents a heroine as openly rebellious as Edna Pontellier inThe Awakening.
Edna's character development and awakening begin slowly and she seems from the very beginning to expect disappointment even while she hopes for fulfillment. It is foreshadowed in the dim light that first allows her to see her own latent dissatisfaction in Chapter VI that is described as a ‘light which, showing the way, forbids it’
Edna Pontellier could not have told why, wishing to go to the beach with Robert, she should in the first place have declined, and in the second place have followed in obedience to one of the two contradictory impulses which impelled her.
and the suddenness with which her emotions rise to the surface renders them both disturbing and exciting. Remembering the passionate obsession and craziness that had consumed her before marriage, Edna is suddenly struck by the contrast between those feelings and the feelings she has now in her marriage. Voicing these feelings to Adèle furthers the shedding of her outer layers of reserve, as does her sensual, almost violent reaction to the music played by Mademoiselle Reisz a few weeks later.
Concerning the piano plays, the difference between the response Adèle's piano playing evokes in Edna and that evoked by Mademoiselle Reisz’s signals both the magnitude of the older woman's talent in awakening long-hidden passions and the magnitude of the awakening of the heroine itself. Edna's clear physical reaction to Mademoiselle Reisz's piano playing indicates the scope of her dawning self-discovery.
touch with the female capacity for emotion and initiative, by the end of the novel she will both recognize and realize this capacity. Her internal change will be symbolized by a refiguring of the earlier image, as Edna will emerge naked, as a feminized version of her masculine figure of solitude. The visions described in Chapter IX serve as a mark against which to measure Edna development as the novel progresses.
The secondary characters that surround Edna in these early chapters of self-discovery are quite important. They often foreshadow the later events of the narrative. First, for example, the two lovers and the lady in black are clearly present at the beach, both before and after Edna's confessions to Adèle. They symbolize two stages in the life of a respectable Victorian woman. The lady in black, a representation of death and mourning, hovers around the innocent young lovers and serves as a constant reminder of the tragedy and isolation that are associated with love in The Awakening. As a second example, the guests are entertained at the celebration by the Farival twins, who were dedicated at birth to the Virgin Mary and, thus, represent the expected destiny for young Victorian girls: chaste motherhood. Like Adèle, who continues her study of music in order to brighten and beautify her home, the twins also exemplify the “artistic” woman, who was expected to use art not to express herself, but rather to be socially entertaining. In contrast, Edna will later find her own art, her painting and drawing, to be a source of great private satisfaction and pleasure.
self-discovery. Before the swim, Edna has been unable to venture into the water because she is afraid of abandoning herself to the sea's vast and isolating expanse. After the swim, however, Edna has gained a new confidence in her own solitude.
When Edna goes into the water on the night of the party, she appears like a ‘little tottering, stumbling, clutching child, who . . . walks for the first time alone.’
“But that night she was like the little tottering, stumbling, clutching child, who of a sudden realizes its powers, walks for the first time alone”. (Chopin in Culley, 1976: 28).
As she gains confidence she thinks and announces to herself,
“How easy it is!” she thought. “It is nothing,” she said aloud; “why did I not discover before that it was nothing. Think of the time I have lost splashing about like a baby!” (Chopin in Culley, 1976:28).
Using a metaphor of rebirth and childhood growth to describe Edna's metamorphosis, Chopin's language in this passage presents Edna as a child who has just grown out of her infancy and is finally a full-fledged toddler. Edna's journey is not complete, however. Although she rebels against the societal expectations by venturing out alone, she also retains a certain childlike fear of self-reliance, as evidenced in the terror she feels when she realizes that she must depend only on herself to make it back to shore.
assumptions about the helpless status of women. In many ways, Victorian law treated women like dependent minors, granting them their rights through their husbands as children would receive their rights through their fathers (Culley, 1976:118). At this point in her awakening, Edna's rebellious will is not paired with the fortitude required to withstand the consequences of challenging the social conventions, and the tragic end of her story lies in the fact that she never quite attains this power. Thus, in addition to foreshadowing her eventual death in the ocean, the episode where she first swims also foreshadows the dangerous discrepancy between Edna's desire (her desire to swim) and her stamina (her inability to sustain the courage and strength that propel her to swim out on her own).
Edna's sense of independence and control is tested when Léonce returns to the cottage and demands that she come inside with him. Inspired by her earlier feats, Edna stands up to Léonce for the first time in their six years of marriage. She even reproaches him for speaking to her with such assumed authority. Eventually, however, the pressing reality of her situation sinks in, and physical exhaustion collapses her raised spirit. As she goes inside to bed, we see the conventional structure of relations between Léonce and his wife restored. Léonce survives Edna's disobedience and his comment that he will go to bed after he finishes his cigar proves that he can dictate his own bedtime whereas Edna, childlike, cannot.
has instilled in Edna a new sexual awareness. She and Robert say nothing to one another, but, in the silence, Edna feels ‘the first-felt throbbing of desire’, the strong desire that she possibly does not quite understand but that she knows it really exists.
“He seated himself again and rolled a cigarette, which he smoked in silence. Neither did Mrs. Pontellier speak. No multitude of words could have been more significant than those moments of silence, or more pregnant with the first-felt throbbings of desire” (Chopin in Culley, 1976:31).
The repeated phrase of the song first sung by Robert on the boat and later by Edna—“Ah! Si tu savais” (Chopin in Culley, 1976:41) (meaning, ‘if only you knew’)—emphasizes the dramatic irony of the plot: neither character is aware of what will come to pass. First, they have both repressed their desire for one another. The song will also come to refer to Edna's naïveté regarding the impossibility of her union with Robert. Robert's adherence to societal conventions here, despite and in contrast to Edna's own eagerness, foreshadows his similar inability to commit to her at the end of the novel.
The bitter farewell between Edna and Robert demonstrates their contrasting attitudes toward upholding the rules assigned by society and tradition. Robert never addresses Edna directly by her first name, saying simply, “Good-by, my dear Mrs. Pontellier.” (Chopin in Culley, 1976:45). He seems to believe strongly in the idea that Léonce already has the rights of possession over Edna, and Robert's use of the words “my dear” is his only expression of his feelings for Edna. Edna, on the other hand, calls Robert directly by his first name, clinging to his hand as she asks, “Write to me when you get there, won't you, Robert?” (Chopin in Culley, 1976:45). Robert, who has recognized the chemistry between himself and Edna since the first days of their acquaintance, is able to overlook his feelings for Edna when etiquette requires. She, on the other hand, has not yet reached either stage. It is only as Robert walks away that she recognizes the symptoms of youthful infatuation in her feelings for him.
listen to her own emotions, she has come to feel a right over them. Thus, she does not feel remorse at inciting Léonce to talk about Robert, nor does she keep from Adèle her unwillingness to give up herself for her children. While her farewell with Robert is revelatory of the still-undeveloped nature of Edna's sexual awareness, her awakening has already progressed quite far on a more general level. Edna, unlike Adèle, can see that there is something more valuable than one's life, that there is a reality more profound and important than physical existence.
After returning to New Orleans, Edna begins to allow this inner life to emerge and expand to the point that it affects those around her. She occupies her time with painting rather than domestic chores and is inspired by her own moods.
Edna could not help but think that it was very foolish, very childish, to have stamped upon her wedding ring and smashed the crystal vase upon the tiles. She was visited by no more outbursts, moving her to such futile expedients, she began to do as she liked and to feel as she liked. She completely abandoned her Tuesdays at home, and did not return the visits of those who called upon her. She made no ineffectual efforts to conduct her household en bonne menagerie, going and coming as it suited her fancy…” (Chopin in Culley, 1976:57)
“It sometimes entered Mr. Pontellier’s mind to wonder if his wife were not growing a little unbalanced mentally. He could see plainly that she was not herself. That is, he could not see that she was becoming herself and daily casting aside that fictitious self which we assume like a garment with which to appear to the world.” (Chopin in Culley, 1976:57).
Keeping this remark in mind, literal garments gather increasing importance in these chapters as Edna expresses her rebellion in part through her clothing. Upset by the news of Robert's departure, Edna strips down to her dressing gown. The layers she removes could be seen to symbolize Victorian discretion, stripped away by her growing sexual awareness. And, back in New Orleans, Edna's disregard for the traditional Tuesday reception is revealed to Léonce by the ordinary housedress she wears in place of her reception gown. The restriction and theatricality of social customs are embodied in the restrictive costuming that accompanies those customs.
The contrast between Edna and Adèle grows increasingly apparent, as Edna drifts ever farther from the ideal “mother-woman” embodied by Adèle. Edna is increasingly preoccupied with the idea of abandoning her former lifestyle for a career in painting, whereas Adèle sees no difference between Edna's art and her own music, which she uses, not as an outlet for her emotions, but as a way to serve and nurture her domestic and social relations. Adèle's soirée musicale exemplifies her use of music as a social tool.
husband share, and she thinks that they cannot fully appreciate life beyond the narrow confines of convention. When she saw Adèle's behavior in Chapter XVIII, she thought to herself that “the taste of life's delirium” is preferable to the “blind contentment” of the Ratignolles (Chopin in Culley, 1976: 56). In Chapter XXIII, Edna again finds her friend's behavior distasteful. When Edna takes her father to one of Adèle's musical soirées, Adèle plays the perfect hostess, flirting with glances, gestures, and compliments. Edna looks down upon such coquetry, and although she enjoys being noticed by the men, she waits for them to approach her during lulls in the music. Edna's attitude reveals her desire to engage with men on a more equal and less self-degrading manner.
While Edna finds herself feeling distanced from her former confidante Adèle, she becomes increasingly close to Mademoiselle Reisz, whom she is beginning to resemble. An inspiration to Edna's awakening, Mademoiselle Reisz is a self-sufficient and independent woman. She is passionate about her music and ignores the opinions of those around her. Through her relationship with the pianist, Edna becomes more aware of herself as a woman capable of passionate art and passionate love. While the two capacities are interconnected, Mademoiselle Reisz serves to further each specifically. Not only is the pianist in touch with her own artistic emotions, she is, on a more pragmatic level, in touch with the traveling Robert, and she is the only one to whom he speaks about his love for Edna.
opera tells the tragic love story of two characters resembling Edna and Robert: a married woman and a single man who can be together only in death. In the piece the mademoiselle plays, Isolde pledges her decision to follow Tristan in death. Although the text does not quote the words Isolde sings here, an acquaintance with the lyrics allows the reader to access a bit of discreet but poignant foreshadowing. Isolde sings: “As they swell and roar around me, shall I breathe them, shall I listen to them? Shall I sip them, plunge beneath them, to expire in sweet perfume? In the surging swell, in the ringing sound, in the vast wave of the world's breath—to drown, to sink, unconscious—supreme bliss.” (). Isolde's words prefigure Edna's final, suicidal, entry into the ocean waves.
Léonce, blinded by conventional views of women's behavior, sees Edna's newfound independence as a sign of mental illness. Doctor Mandelet shows more insight by advising Léonce to allow Edna to do as she wishes. Doctor Mandelet intends his tale at dinner to be both a diagnostic tool and a subtle admonition to Edna, and Edna shows that she understands the Doctor's meaning by countering with her own elaborately detailed and captivating tale of a woman who escapes with her lover and never returns. Only the doctor, Edna, and the reader are able to discern the meaningful subtext that is present in these dinner table stories.
vanishing self,” (Chopin in Culley, 1976:76) the sexual desires within Edna are pressing on her from the inside, seeking expression. Edna finally succumbs to Alcée's seductions after she confesses to Mademoiselle Reisz—aloud for the first time—her love for Robert. It may seem ironic that she gives herself to one man just after declaring her devotion to another, but, in terms of Edna's development, the two acts are joined. Both are part of the same process of passionate release: Edna's verbal admission to love in one corner of her life gives her the strength to pursue it further in another.
During her conversation with Alcée, Edna directly voices her desire for self-realization. She wants to become more acquainted with herself, but she cannot do so within the constraints of social conventions.
“[….]. By all the codes which I am acquainted with, I am a devilishly wicked specimen of the sex. But some way I can’t convince myself that I am….” (Chopin in Culley, 1976:82)
By those standards, she is ‘a devilishly wicked specimen of the sex’—subverting order, descending into selfishness and hedonism—yet she herself cannot interpret her desire for an independent identity as a “wicked” endeavor. Alcée becomes irritable at her philosophical tarrying; he wants her to play the role of the typical, infatuated adulteress.
“Don’t. What’s the use? Why should you bother thinking about it when I can tell you what manner of woman you are.” His fingers strayed occasionally down to her warm, smooth cheeks and firm chin, which was growing a little full and double.
“Oh, yes! You will tell me that I am adorable; everything that is captivating. Spare yourself the effort.”
Clearly, Alcée is used to having the upper hand in his romantic relationships and views women as pleasurable conquests. Edna refuses to be treated or behave as a stereotype. In her growing independence, she has declared that she will never again be the possession of another, and she abides by this statement in her affair with Alcée. She expects him to make allowances for her own needs. When Alcée finds her in a frenzy of preparation for her move, Edna will not agree to see him at his convenience. Moreover, he does not find her “languishing, reproachful, or indulging in sentimental tears” (Chopin in Culley, 1976:86) as he most likely expected. Edna is unwilling to let her affair, the first sexual relationship she has had that is not one of possession, consume her life. Her relationship with Alcée does not keep her from pursuing any other aspects of her awakening. It simply quells the sexual desire that had consumed her days, and even her dreams.
freeing herself of the financial chains that bind her to Léonce, she can clear the path for a relationship with the man she loves.
The house's nickname foreshadows Edna's tragic fate. While it does provide Edna with independence and isolation, allowing her to progress in her sexual awakening and to throw off Léonce's authority, Edna will soon find that it offers less liberty than it initially seemed to promise. Edna escapes the gilded cage that Léonce's house constituted, but she confines herself within a new sort of cage. Social convention—and Robert's concession to it—continues to keep Edna trapped and domesticated. Indeed, not only may Edna's move have failed to improve her lot, the text's symbolism suggests that the change of house may threaten actual damage to the vibrancy of her spirit. Whereas Edna was initially associated, in Chapter I, with a brightly colored and multilingual caged parrot, she is now likened to a dull gray pigeon, a comparatively languid and inarticulate creature.
Although Edna does not miss the duties and limitations of her past, she has begun to feel the isolation of her current lifestyle. Her isolation is alleviated only by lust, not by the more genuine, purer kind of emotion she shares with her sons. Her visit to Iberville reveals that Edna still feels a sense of responsibility to her children, despite her feeling that she is no longer bound by matrimonial duty. Whereas Edna resented her obligation to her husband, her responsibility to her sons is pleasing. Edna's unhappiness about leaving her children suggests a developing, although still unconscious, understanding of the effect her infidelities will have on the lives of her boys. Consciously, however, Edna thinks only of Robert's return, dwelling on the idealized version of true love that she believes awaits them.
When Robert does return, the romantic, dreamlike reunion that Edna had imagined is replaced by an uncomfortable sense of tension. As they walk past her former home on the way to the pigeon house, Robert remarks, “I never knew you in your home.” (Chopin in Culley, 1976:98) Edna's glib reply—“I am glad you did not” (Chopin in Culley, 1976:98)—reveals her unrealistic expectations for their relationship. She simplistically assumes that her new home and new independence will foster a love untainted by her past life, and she believes that Robert will be able to see her only as she is now, estranged from her prior identity.
However, Robert's behavior shows that he does not believe the past can be so easily laid aside and forgotten. He continues to call Edna by her married name, he mentions Léonce several times, and he refers to the Pontellier mansion as Edna's “home,” not as her former home. The lovers' contrasting attitudes toward Edna's past foreshadow the opposing decisions the two will make at the end of the novel, when faced with the prospect of honoring their emotions only by way of adultery.
The photograph of Alcée that Robert finds on Edna’s table ruins Edna and Robert's evening alone on at least two different levels. As a suggestion of a third presence, it shatters their temporary illusion of being a world unto themselves. It also may serve to subtly weaken the bond they share by lowering Edna in Robert's esteem. Although the text does not state whether Robert knows about Edna's affair with Alcée, it is clear that he is aware of Alcée's reputation. He is shocked when his discovers Alcée's photograph in Edna's home, and in Chapter VIII he tells a disapproving story about Alcée to Edna and Adèle on Grand Isle. Robert may have begun to wonder whether Edna is easily seduced.
nothing to do with her lover because she is so consumed by thoughts of her confusing reunion.
Since they first met, Edna and Robert have been misunderstanding one another with increasing severity. On Grand Isle, they understood each other and the time they spent together was harmonious. Since Robert left for Mexico, he has not communicated with Edna at all. She learned of his feelings indirectly, by reading his letters to Mademoiselle Reisz. Now, their renewed relationship is fraught, for the first time, with miscommunication. When Edna echoes almost verbatim Robert's expression of his nostalgia and misery during their time apart, he misunderstands her mimicry of his statement to be a form of mockery and consequently declares her “cruel.” (Chopin in Culley, 1976:99). And, although Robert stays away from Edna because he recognizes the impossibility of their union, Edna doesn't understand his distance and soon returns to her former depression and hopelessness.
“[…] he had detected the latent sensuality, which unfolded under his delicate sense of her nature’s requirements like a torpid, torrid, sensitive blossom.” (Chopin in Culley, 1976: 103).
By the time Robert returns from Mexico, Edna has ceased to think of herself as a possession. Yet, Robert's abstention from Edna shows that he continues to understand male-female relations as those between a possessor and a possession. Robert's complaints of Edna's “cruelty” reveal that he doesn't see any way for the two of them to be together because he sees society as exerting an inescapable force. Robert does not perceive that Edna has not grasped this for herself and, thus, considers her continued pursuit of him to be intentionally malicious and vain.
Only when Edna and Robert finally speak honestly of their feelings for one another does Edna begin to undergo the tragic, final revelation of her awakening. Robert admits that he had fantasized about Edna becoming his wife, had harbored wild ideas of Léonce setting her free. He thus regards the central issue of his relationship with Edna to be the problem of ownership and the transfer of ownership—not the notion of love, or of simply being together. While Edna thought she could use her relationship with Robert to liberate herself from convention, and saw a life with him as one of the goals of her liberation, she now finds that to run to Robert is to run straight into the arms of the old male-female power dynamics.
“I am no longer one of Mr. Pontellier's possessions to dispose of or not . . . If he were to say, 'Here Robert, take her and be happy; she is yours,' I should laugh at both of you.” (Chopin in Culley, 1976:106-7).
Robert is shocked by the boldness of this statement, and perhaps also dismayed by the disregard it expresses for him and his own needs; Edna seems to mock Robert's profession of loyalty. Robert does not want a conventional affair, nor does he want to be just another step in a purely selfish quest for independence. Despite his love for Edna, he cannot respect her love for him if it can be realized only in adultery.
However, Robert, too, feels passion. We read that Edna's
“[…] seductive voice, together with his great love for her, had enthralled his senses, had deprived him of every impulse but the longing to hold her and keep her.” (Chopin in Culley, 1976:107).
Thus, though he knows that the relationship cannot end as they wish, he begs her to stay. Robert's passion allows him some insight into Edna's own mindset but not enough: he feels torn between his love and his sense of moral rectitude, but his passion is not strong enough to make him decide in favor of his love. Edna does not fully realize this until she discovers Robert's note. When even Robert, whose love matches the sincerity and desperation of her own, refuses to trespass the boundaries of societal convention, Edna acknowledges the intensity of her solitude. Edna realizes that she is still trapped, bound to society and its expectations. What provides these shackles are not the men in her life but the boys. Her final despondency does not result from her fear that she will forever remain a dependent but from her thoughts of those who depend upon her.
