Finally Awake

The last page of The Awakening by Kate Chopin is interesting and meaningful, an excellent conclusion to an extremely thought-provoking novel. At the end, Edna is naked and swimming into the ocean all alone. We don't know anything of Robert or her family, what she told them or how she got back to Grand Isle, but there she is swimming naked in the Gulf. On the last page she is just starting to feel exhaustion.
She is thinking of the note that Robert left for her. Her tone is desperate and frustrated as she thinks of him, et it drifts into peace as she drifts further into the ocean. She realizes now that he never had, and never could have, understand what she wants and needs. Just within her brief conversation with Doctor Mandelet Edna realized that he was thinking along the same lines as her, that to talk to him could have saved this situation. A talk with someone who understood her feelings and point of view could have prevented this. Yet Edna does not seem to show remorse for not speaking with the doctor. She seems at peace with herself, knowing that her infatuation with Robert would have only ended in heartbreak. They never would have really worked out. She appears to know this, and now that the "shore was far behind her, and her strength was gone" she has no way to turn back anyways (214). Edna rests confidently with her decisions.
When she looks ahead of her, "into the distance," Edna feels the terror that she felt during her first solo swim bubble up within her (214). Its as if she looks ahead into the wide ocean, and she looks ahead into her future. The latter is looking much shorter than the former, and this gives her a start. The terror of death that anyone would feel when looking straight into the face of it. And then her terror "sank again" and she was lost from the present (214).
Her mind goes back to a simpler place, where she was safe from men and marriage and water. It creates images of sound, it sounds like a summer with "the hum of bees" and "the barking of a dog" (214). Though what really makes it look like summer to me was "the musky odor of pinks" that filled the air (214). Summer is flowers and colours and relaxing sounds, exactly what Edna experiences in her last moments. The scene which she pictures as she dies is very vague and open to interpretation, yet I feel like it is a scene from Edna's childhood where she was with her family and everything was safe. She did not have to worry about everything that would come to affect her in the future. I believe she went back to being a little girl as she died, as she goes back to the ocean and to the beginning of where these ideas began.
As Edna goes back to the place where it all began in oder to end her life, one wonders if this is in an attempt to take it all back. Once these ideas entered her life she lost so many relationships with the people around her, she hurt her family and didn't even go to her sister's wedding. And in the end she could never be with the one she truly loved anyways. Going back to die in the gulf at Grand Isle could be an attempt to kill the ideas along with herself, as she does not reach the freedom of love with Robert as she had first wanted.
Yet then thinking back on what kind of person Edna Pontellier is, one must disregard that theory. Over the course of the novel, the year that she takes to change her life, Edna becomes fearless and confident in herself. She takes every action she wants to without a blink in the direction of the people it may hurt. She acted, thought and felt any which way she wanted to. I don't think she would have lost this quality of self respect and interest at the very end. Especially because it was society and the people around her keeping her from a life of love with Robert, I know she wouldn't think twice about hurting them in order to get what she wanted for herself. Then one must conclude that Edna returns to Grand Isle to die for reasons other than killing the ideas which set her free. This is the place where she truly fell in love, where she learned that she might become independent and where she discovered that she actually had the strength in her to work for this dream of freedom. Edna must have gone back to the gulf at Grand Isle to truly feel the freedom that she had been working towards. There, alone in the ocean, not restricted by a family, a society, or even a swimsuit, she was free to do whatever she liked with no judgement because there was no one to see her. She was just alone with the light that had taught her freedom and the sea which had shown her it was possible. Feeling more at home in the ocean than anywhere else, Edna decides to spend her last moments there and at peace with the things she has discovered about herself and the decisions she has made in order to make those discoveries.

Video Blogs

My video responses to the end of the novel can be found here, here, and here.

Swimming Out

By now it is apparent in the novel that the sea represents something deeper than water. Edna's realizations about her position in her society and the importance of her own feminism in her life have always come around, or have had something to do with, water. More specifically, the ocean. The first time she swims without assistance is no different.

Mrs. Pontellier's realization that she can swim comes after the dinner where she was so overcome with feelings upon hearing the song of Solitude. Edna finds her ability to swim very suddenly, "alone, boldly and with over confidence" (59). She inspires herself with her own ability, that she can do something powerful without the aid of anyone around her. Yet she makes a mistake, "she grew daring and reckless, overestimating her strength. She wanted to swim far out where no woman had swum before" and it is here where she scares herself into climbing out of the water and returning home (60). 

However, who can blame her for getting a little excited? After the oppression she has faced for her entire life, the ability to do something on her own and for no one else but herself and her own enjoyment gives her "a feeling of exultation" (60). 

This episode shows Mrs. Pontellier her own strength and the inspiration that finding this strength can create. When she discovers that she can swim on her own, Edna believes in herself. She believes in herself enough to the point where she doesn't want to stop, she wants to continue on this journey of self belief to a point "where no woman had swum before" because she knows now that she has the ability (60). The fright she gets at that point far out in the water is enough to make her go back in the first time, but I believe that her "daring and reckless" side will soon show itself again. Edna Pontellier is becoming a stronger woman, she is thinking and dreaming and trying. She desires success and change. The dim light that began within her is growing brighter as she discovers just how capable she truly is. The "voice of the sea" continues to seduce her and draw her out of her zone of comfort, showing Mrs. Pontellier how to look into herself to find freedom. 

Solitude

There is a passage in chapter nine which recalls a passage from chapter six. In chapter nine, Mademoiselle Reisz plays for the families at the dinner party. She plays a piece which Mrs. Pontellier entitles Solitude, "the name of the piece was something else, but she called it Solitude"(55). This song "was a short, plaintive, minor strain" that filled Mrs. Pontellier with feelings and images and "passions themselves were aroused within her soul" (56). Mrs. Pontellier is so affected by this piece that she cannot even talk when its over.
I wrote a blog on chapter six and its meaning here, the author describes the "voice of the sea" as "inviting the soul to wander for a spell in abysses of solitude"(35). The word solitude stands out to me, both in this instance and in the title that Edna gives to the piece of music.
I believe this means that Mrs. Pontellier craves solitude. She describes the sea as"seductive" and "sensuous" as it is inviting her towards solitude (35).  Similarly, the "passions" that came upon Edna as she listened to the song of Solitude were described as effecting her soul by "swaying it, lashing it, as the waves daily beat upon her splendid body" (56).
At first I wasn't sure why Mrs. Pontellier would crave solitude because it seems as if she is alone all the time, she and her husband are not extremely bound together by love and she feels very little extreme desire to be always watching over her children. I then realized, however, that though she was physically alone for most of her time she was still followed by the acute knowledge that she was someone's wife and a mother, and she would never be able to escape those facts. The sea and the music wash away these feelings of responsibility from Edna's mind and they leave here just thinking about herself, her own body and soul and what it means. For Edna, solitude means freedom from the obligation and responsibility to love, care for and spend time with the family that she has built.
Mrs. Pontellier felt extremely moved by the feelings in the music, the way she was moved by the ocean and the thoughts it gave her. The "certain light [which] was beginning to dawn dimly within her" continued to grow as she listened to this music (34).

In Response to The Adeles

Lulu posted and interesting blog here which compares Adele the famous and extremely talented singer to Adele Ratignolle from Kate Chopin's The Awakening. Lulu makes reference to descriptions of Mrs. Ratignolle from page 26, where the character is first introduced. She describes Mrs. Ratignolle as "another much weaker Adele" but I have to disagree. In this passage that introduces Adele Ratignolle I don't find any signs of weakness.
Mrs. Ratignolle seems to be quite confident in fact, the way she "was very fond of Mrs. Pontellier, and often she tok her sewing and went over to sit with her in the afternoons" shows that she was not shy. When Mrs. Ratignolle wanted to do something, she did it. Similarly, when sitting with Mrs. Pontellier on her porch, it was Mrs. Ragtignolle who "had possession of the rocker," despite the fact that it was Mrs. Pontellier's porch. This puts her in a position of power, not weakness and submission.
Mrs. Ratignolle is described by the author as beautiful, devoted to her husband and family. This is not to say that she is  a weak character. I believe that it is unfair to judge her as weak by comparing her to Adele the singer because their circumstances are much too different. The singer lives in our modern world that has already been through feminist movements. The character lives in a setting where her world is her family. The fact that she is content and devoted and does not lash out at society by no means makes her weak, it is apparent through close reading of the text that her personality is not one of submission. Perhaps Adele Ratignolle is not the most brave or daring of characters, but I certainly see no weakness in her.

The Light, The Sea and The Woman

Chapter Six of The Awakening stands out from the first five. It was immediately apparent to me as I turned the page that this was a chapter to really pay attention to. Mainly because its about a page long in total, but also because the tone shifts. The narrator's voice stops simply relaying a story, here something different is added. This change in tone reflects the change in attitude that Mrs. Pontellier begins to undergo here. This change is described as a light that "was beginning to dawn dimly within her - the light which, showing the way, forbids it" (34). It shows how she is beginning to truly consider her place in the world. This light is her first realization that she does not have to spend her life devoted to a husband she doesn't love, nor as a simple wife who sneaks out of the house to cry at night. "In short, Mrs. Pontellier was beginning to realize her position in the universe as a human being" and these types of thoughts will undoubtedly change the course of her life (24). Once she begins thinking in this manner I know she will not be able to go back to the way she thought before. Once you begin questioning things you can never again accept them.
"But the beginning of things, of a world especially, is necessarily vague, tangled, chaotic, and exceedingly disturbing," as is the beginning of this book and the beginnings of the developments of its characters (35). Similarly, one can assume, is the beginning of Mrs. Pontellier's life. She is only 28 years old yet already married with two children. The narrator exclaims, "how few of us ever emerge from such beginning! How many souls perish in its tumult!" yet I think that Mrs. Pontellier will be one of the few that emerges from a beginning of chaos and disturbance. Just looking at her marriage we can see where this chaos and these disturbances are coming from.
The diction here in "emerge" and "tumult" reminds me of an ocean. The way someone can emerge from the water is different than simply leaving it. And tumult makes me think of waves turning over and over on each other with no order or sequence, just crashing and making a big mess. So it was interesting for me when I read on and saw that the narrator then speaks of the sea in such a positive way, because in the previous paragraph I had been imagining all of the horrible things about beginnings swimming in an ocean.
In fact, the sea in the last two paragraphs of chapter six sounds like a woman. The narrator describes the sea as "seductive", "whispering", "sensuous", and with a "soft, close embrace" (35). This description is feminine. The sea invites "the soul to wander for a spell in abysses of solitude; to lose itself in mazes of inward contemplation" (35). Taking these descriptions as a whole, I would say that the sea is feminine and dangerous. The sea is ideas, it is beautiful and welcoming and warm. It draws you into itself so you can look at yourself through "inward contemplation" (35).
If this book wasn't a feminist novel before, it definitely is now. The sea represents feminine ideas that can be dangerous, yet are inviting and beautiful all the same. And it is for this reason Edna Pontellier feels so "impelled" to spend time at the beach (34).

Awakening Hamlet

When we read Hamlet in class a while ago, we focused a lot on the idea of seeming vs. being. This idea is also very apparent in The Awakening. The morning after Mr. Pontellier reprimands Mrs. Pontellier for being careless and neglectful he gave her half of the money he had won the night before before he left. As he was leaving, it was apparent that "Mr. Pontellier was a great favorite, and ladies, men, children, even nurses, were always on hand to say good-bye to him" (23). Mrs. Pontellier "stood smiling and waving" as he left, baring no trace of the tears that she had cried in the middle of the night before (23).
A few days after he left, Mr. Pontellier sent a box of sweets back to his family. Mrs. Pontellier always generously gave away the contents of boxes like these because" she was quite used to receiving them when away from home," as if Mr. Pontellier sent them as apologies to make up for his absences or outbursts (23). The ladies who took the sweets that Mrs. Pontellier gave out from the box "all declared that Mr. Pontellier was the best husband in the world" while "Mrs. Pontellier was forced to admit that she knew of none better" (24). And that is the last sentence of chapter three.
This passage seems really sad to me, the fact that Mrs. Pontellier's husband, who verbally abuses her to the point where she's sitting on her porch crying uncontrollably at midnight, is considered "the best husband in the world." What's worse is that Mrs. Pontellier knows that none of the other ladies' husbands are any better, they are all in the same situations. If Mrs. Pontellier is crying her eyes out in the middle of the night because of her husband's words and she has the best husband of the bunch, who can imagine some of the things that the other ladies go through.
However, all of theses ladies and their families appear to be fine, and here is where Hamlet comes in. Mr. Pontellier is cruel to his wife, yet he sends her packages of sweets and kisses her goodbye, so it appears to the rest of the world that they have a perfectly happy marriage. As for the other ladies, some of them may be in worse marriages than Mrs. Pontellier's, yet they all act as if everything is normal around other people so that no one suspects how grave it may be.

A Definition

When we were reading those essays on Hamlet and had to write blog posts on some of them for homework, I wrote a post on Friedrich Niezsche's essay, The Birth of Tragedy, which can be found here. In this essay, Niezche discusses the Dionysian Man. I, not knowing what this was, proceeded to look it up in an online dictionary and continue my post. However, upon entering class the day the blogs were due, I was told off for using a dictionary definition as opposed to the definition that the author supplied.
I will not make the same mistake twice.
In Kate Chopin's The Awakening she discusses marriage and the roles of husband and wife quite frequently. Chopin also defines marriage and these roles for the time period of her story. At the beginning of chapter three is where I found the most explicit 'definitions'.
The marriage is a partnership, not a union of love. The husband and wife are colleagues. They do not show affection for one other.
Though colleagues, the husband and wife are not equal. The husband has every right to feel "discouraged" when coming home late from a night out, waking up his wife, and only receiving half-hearted responses to his conversation (22). The husband may also forget promises made to his children, as Mr. Pontellier "had forgotten the bonbons and peanuts for the boys" when he came home from the hotel (23). However, if the wife should say that the children do not have fever (when they do not indeed have any fever) whilst the husband declares that the children do have fever, the husband's word is taken to be accurate despite evidence from the wife. The wife is expected to tend to the 'ill' children as the husband reproaches "his wife with her inattention, her habitual neglect of the children"as he smokes (23).
The wife is "the sole object of [the husband's] existence," as Mr. Pontellier aptly puts it when he comes home from the hotel and is disappointed to find his wife asleep and uninterested in what he has to say at 11 o'clock at night (22).  She is the caretaker and the nurse of the entire family, not just the children. The wife is the martyr who takes the care to blow out the candle "which her husband had left burning" as she slips outside at midnight to cry until her sleeve no longer dries her tears, for a reason that "she could not have told" (22). The wife accepts episodes such as the above because they are "not uncommon in her married life" (22).