The Awakening

‘Something put into my head that you cared for me; and I lost my senses,' writes Kate Chopin towards the end of her heartbreaking novel, The Awakening. The story takes place in the late nineteenth-century Louisiana, near New Orleans. We follow our protagonist, Edna Pontellier, as she navigates her journey towards self-fulfillment and independence.

Edna is in a loveless marriage with a husband who sees her as a statuette or a rare painting among his personal “household gods.” Enter Robert, a young man with an aptitude for art who enjoys the company of Edna and always takes the time to compliment her hobbies, accompanies her to the Gulf Coast, guards her while she sleeps, and sings fun lullabies in French.

Robert decides to move to Mexico to pursue a business venture. Edna is shocked to hear about this revelation, and while he is gone, she starts to realize she was in love with him.

“Robert's voice was not pretentious. It was musical and true. The voice, the notes, the whole refrain haunted her memory.”

Robert promises to write to her while he is away, but instead sends telegrams to Edna's friend because he thinks that she does not care for him. “I realized what a cur I was to dream of such a thing, even if you had been willing.”

3.5⭐️

Glad I finally read this. The writing is beautiful and I love how unlikeable a lot of the characters, including Edna, were to me. She is so her own person and the author is not trying to make her a stand-in for a generic feminist/self righteous woman. She approaches every situation in this book in ways that I found deeply unrelateable, which again made me feel that she was a truly distinct and individual character.

That being said, the ending, while somewhat in-character and definitely poetic, did dampen the overall message/themes of the book. Yet another literary woman who tries to emancipate herself from the patriarchy but cannot escape authorial punishment. Even female authors took this route. Also while there was one line where Edna acknowledges that even Robert wouldn't make her happy long term, it does sort of seem like the main reason she decides to free herself from patriarchal/marital control is because she gets a crush on a different man. Which kind of negates some of the independence of it all.

Which brings me to some of my issues with this book. 1. Gender roles. The way the characters are described is so deeply entrenched in gender roles and stereotypes (even for the time, there are other books from the time and even from many years earlier that do this much less) - women are flaky, dreamy, sensual, poetic, irrational, passionate etc. Men are businesslike, rational, calm, and sometimes playboys. That's it. 2. Race and class. Given the subject matter the complete lack of awareness of the experience of women with less privilege/freedom is noticeable. Even if Edna were to occasionally acknowledge her servants as people that would help. Not to mention a few scenes where characters heavily use racist stereotypes and descriptions when talking about different groups of people. It is obviously a product of its time but still worth noting when read from a modern lens.