The Awakening by Kate Chopin
The Awakening
by Kate Chopin
Dover Publications, 1899
ISBN: 978-0486277868
128 p.p.
The Awakening, by Kate Chopin, was shocking to readers who had not been exposed to brutal honesty in regards to female marital infidelity at its time. It was seen as a daring portrayal of a woman trapped in a crumbling marriage who seeks and finds passion outside of the constraints of marriage.
Edna Pontellier, the protagonist, is a respectable woman of the late 1800s who not only acknowledges her sexual desires, but also has the strength and courage to act on them. By entering the realm of infidelity, Edna taints her image as a woman since society has told women countless times that they need to be models of perfection without fail—angelic, compassionate, thoughtful, always subservient, and forever ready to be at your service as a good mother and a good wife. This allows Edna to break free from the norm of society where women only have an identity through their husbands and children. This causes controversy because through her actions, Edna is seen as selfish, yet male infidelity would have been socially acceptable and tolerated.
Edna acknowledges her awakening as an individual and urges to break away from the standards imposed on her by society. She embraces her deviance and tries to come to terms with this new knowledge of her own self. Edna learns that as an individual she too can exist in society. She desires to go through with how she feels, regardless of how morally ambiguous, unjustified, or self-centered it may seem. Her failure does not come from wanting to break away from society and not follow the gender roles of what a mother should be, but that she abandoned herself. Due to this, Edna is seen as a rebellious character. At the beginning of the novel, she seems content with her married life until one day it was not enough:
“I would give up the unessential; I would give up my money, I would give up my life for my children; but I wouldn’t give myself. I can’t make it more clear; it’s only something I am beginning to comprehend, which is revealing itself to me.”
This book has received both praise and backlash due to its portrayal of Edna. She has been seen as both selfish and heroic. Selfish for cheating on her husband, finding her own identity, and abandoning her children; Heroic for breaking away from the stereotypical portrayal of women in this time period, as well as finding and being true to herself.
A woman needs to be recognized and accepted as a human being first—imperfect, flawed, egocentric, and possibly even a bad mother and an irresponsible wife, just like the way society accepts a bad husband and bad father. Somehow, being a bad father is reasonably acceptable, but being a bad mother constitutes a profane act. This is what happens to Edna: she is judged based on what will happen to her children rather than who she is as a person. Edna's husband does not receive any backlash from society for not being a great parent which shows the readers exactly what is expected of women: be solely responsible for the home and the children’s upbringing while having an absent husband is acceptable. Like many characters, Edna is flawed, yet her refusal to let society dictate her life and reduce her to ONLY being a mother and wife is simply heroic.
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Katherine O'Flaherty, better known as Kate Chopin, was born in St. Louis, Missouri. She was the third of five children and the only child to live past twenty-five. Chopin was very close to her mother, grandmother, and great grandmother who were all smart, independent widows, whom inspired her to write about strong female characters. She wrote several short stories and novels for children and adults centered on Louisiana's Creole culture. Chopin's stories were seen as well ahead of their time and she achieved widespread acclaim posthumously.
