Check the Literature archives for other article and essays on or related to The Awakening, including : The Awakening by Kate Chopin : Analysis of the Process of Edna’s Awakening  •  Character Analysis of Edna in “The Awakening” and Discussion About Conflict & Climax   •    The Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin : Language, Emotion and Marriage   •    American Literature Since 1865-Roosevelt : Common Themes and Issues   •  Death as a Metaphor in “The Awakening” by Kate Chopin •

In this world presented in “The Awakening” by Chopin of masculine economic interests and the gendered division of labor, it becomes apparent that the two are not entirely separated. As expressed by Leonce on a number of occasions, especially when his wife’s behavior becomes increasingly unorthodox and anti-social, his business interests are kept secure by his wife’s ability to entertain his allies or potential business conquests. For example, at one point in “The Awakening” when Edna writes to tell him of her move to the pigeon house, aside from being angry at her rash behavior, his other primary interest is that his clients and partners (we should assume males, obviously) would be risked by this act.

Subsequently, Edna’s husband makes the appearance of having the house remodeled and, in one of the important quotes from “The Awakening” by Kate Chopin, says, “furthermore, in one of the daily papers appeared a brief notice to the effect that Mr. and Mrs. Pontellier were contemplating a summer sojourn abroad, and that their handsome residence on Esplanade Street was undergoing sumptuous alterations, and would not be ready for occupancy until their return.  Mr. Pontellier had saved appearances” (68). Women in Victorian society of “The Awakening” are to always be ready to entertain the guests and associates for the profit of the male—at least as seen in Edna’s marriage and it seems that much of the effort of women and even young girls is to cultivate this tradition of being objects, possessions for the man to show off and gain and retain economic benefit. There are several points in the text when Leonce reveals the extent to which he views his wife as an object of adornment or a mere possession.

At the beginning of Kate Chopin’s “The Awakening”, when we are first introduced to the main characters, after a day of pleasant swimming Edna returns to her husband with a sunburn at which time he states, “You are burnt beyond recognition,” looking at his wife as one looks at a valuable piece of personal property which has suffered some damage (3). Possessions for a man of business in the Victorian era were of obvious importance and the narrator relates, “He greatly valued his possessions, chiefly because they were his, and derived genuine pleasure from contemplating a painting, a statuette, a rare lace curtain–no matter what—after he had bought it and placed it among his household gods” (40). At the most positive this can be seen as merely a statement about a man who is proud of his wealth, but one cannot forget the context and certainly not the author of this text. Given both of these “warnings” this idea about his love of property is suggested to extend beyond just trinkets or fine furnishings, it extends to women—Edna in particular. He has the desire to own her. In his mind, as evidenced throughout the text, she is something of an employee and must adhere to the strict “code of conduct” which consists of all the principles and norms of a constraining and limiting Victorian society.

Throughout “The Awakening” by Kate Chopin, Leonce is the male character shown to engage in this business/marital relationship more so than the other males, but that could simply be because he is more of the focus. As the thesis statement for “The Awakening” by Kate Chopin and this essay suggests, one might imagine that this idea of possession and ownership extended to the other men as well. Mme. Ratignoll is the very picture of domestic perfection and has her profession as wife down to an art (although that is not to suggest that it is contrived). Whenever this model wife’s husband spoke to her at dinner, she “was keenly interested in everything he said, laying down her fork the better to listen, chiming in, taking the words out of his mouth” (33) and had accomplishments to dazzle her husband’s friends and potential business partners. “It was she who gaily consented to play for the others.  She played very well, keeping excellent waltz time and infusing an expression into the strains, which was indeed inspiring.  She was keeping up her music on account of the children, she said; because she and her husband both considered it a means of brightening the home and making it attractive.”

Unlike Edna and Madame Reisz who practice their artwork for their own private pleasure and enrichment, the creative activities of a model wife like Mme. Ratignoll are employed for entertaining and other domestic functions. Even the young girls that attend the events held by Mme are being indoctrinated into the Victorian code of female behavior. The twins are made to play the piano, not so they become better rounded, but so they may be amusing and delightful at parties (with the intention that these skills will better groom them for worthy husbands) and another young girl does a skirt dance to the delight of all. There is a decided lack of women (aside from Reisz and Edna) who partake of creative or intellectual pursuits that are not likely to fill some domestic role in the future and this seems directly related to the idea of men possessing these women that are capable of providing entertainment for other men. As a side note, it was discussed above that young girls are being trained and groomed to be pleasing to company and it should be stated that Mme. Ratignoll is the finest at these arts of male-pleasing (thus she is seen as the pillar of idealized femininity in the text). Despite the innocence of such an act, on a deeper level there seems to be something wrong when Madame coquetted with him [the old Colonel—Edna’s father] in the most captivating and naive manner, with eyes, gestures, and a profusion of compliments, till the Colonel’s old head felt thirty years younger on his padded shoulders” (58).

After the awakening to the realities of her own desire in the face of what she begins to see as hollow conventions, Edna is perplexed at the process of female performance and submission to male desire. As Edna observes Mme. Ratignoll flirting innocently with her aged father, the narrator states, “Edna marveled, not comprehending.  She herself was almost devoid of coquetry” (58). Upon her father’s departure to go to her sister’s wedding she is relieved, “Edna was glad to be rid of her father when he finally took himself off with his wedding garments and his bridal gifts, with his padded shoulders, his Bible reading, his “toddies” and ponderous oaths” (62) since it seems that all men that surround her seem to weigh her down and send her into her fits of depression. As for the reason why she is acting as though marriage and Victorian conventions disgust and repels her, however, everyone in her life (with the exception of Mme. Reisz) seems to think that she must be mentally imbalanced or afflicted with some disease of the soul. When her husband approaches the doctor about Edna’s problems he does not consider that she might be unhappy in her marriage, rather he thinks “She’s got some sort of notion in her head concerning the eternal rights of women” to which the doctor, who at first seemed as though he may have been one character capable of understanding Edna responds, “has she been associating of late with a circle of pseudo-intellectual women–super-spiritual superior beings?  My wife has been telling me about them” (55).  This response only proves that men in the novel are shown to be limited in their understanding of the complex female mind and thus, in some senses, unfit to render judgment or disapproval upon them. The men in this novel constantly underestimate Edna and assume every possible reason for her behavior except for the one that seems most obvious, that “There would have to be an understanding, an explanation.  Conditions would some way adjust themselves, she felt; but whatever came, she had resolved never again to belong to another than herself.”

It seems impossible for many of the characters in The Awakening (and perhaps many of Chopin’s Victorian readers) to imagine how Edna, with a good husband whom all the ladies lauded as one of the best and most dedicated, would shirk from marriage and it seems strange that the issue of free will and free choice is completely ignored when it comes to women. Many of the characters in “The Awakening’ by Kate Chopin assume that she should be perfectly content in her nice home with stylish possessions and lovely children and it never dawns on the lesser characters that she has simply decided that married life does not suit her. Arguably, one of the turning points in the book (aside from the more obvious cases that demonstrate her awakening such as her first swim and adulterous sexual relationship with Alcee) is when she observes, with new eyes, the domestic bliss of her friend Mme. Ratignoll. Instead of feeling anger that she does not feel the way Adele seems to about her partner, Edna makes a sort of peace with the idea and no longer sees her friend as quite so admirable. Seeing Adele’s acceptance of marriage and its trappings “gave her no regret, no longing.  It was not a condition of life, which fitted her, and she could see in it but an appalling and hopeless ennui.  She was moved by a kind of commiseration for Madame Ratignolle, –a pity for that colorless existence which never uplifted its possessor beyond the region of blind contentment, in which no moment of anguish ever visited her soul, in which she would never have the taste of life’s delirium” (73). This leads her farther down her path to social isolation as the one woman (aside from Mme. Reisz) whom she admired has been “exposed” to her new eyes.

This new way of viewing the world leads her take her fatal steps into the sea and although this is a move of disappointing cowardice, one cannot be completely surprised. After becoming enamored with her awakened self, Edna progressed through the stages of isolation too quickly. Her decisions were rash and she acted selfishly; ignoring her children, abandoning her husband, and putting her faith in the childish notion that Robert would come to marry her. In many respects it almost seems she was destined to return to the open sea that baptized into her new life and allowed her to see through the veil of tradition and to escape from its surprisingly heavy weight for a fleeting moment. “How strange and awful it seemed to stand naked under the sky! How delicious!  She felt like some new-born creature, opening its eyes in a familiar world that it had never known” (92).  Her final act of shedding her clothes is the last step in her over-paced transformation and this act is symbolic of her shedding everything that once bound her to women of the earth