Chopin's The Awakening
Still Asleep and Mostly Happy that Way: The Awakening (1899) as Socially Critical Text and (and in) Kate Chopin's Time Within Kate Chopin's novel The Awakening, which was first published in 1899 to mixed (actually, mostly negative) reviews, and then greeted publicly with a great deal of condemnation (Sprinkle, 1995), the main character Edna Pontellier suffers increasing despair and hopelessness, as a married woman of 28 with two small sons. These spring from her realizations that she is unhappy, misunderstood, and, worst of all, alone with her feelings in a traditional Catholic, Creole-dominated social environment in which women's roles, in particular, are especially narrow and truncated. Once Edna knows she returns the younger, enviably carefree Robert Lebrun's attraction to her, she also recognizes, regretfully and with wistfulness for lost youthful opportunities at passion, that she is nevertheless trapped inside a loveless marriage, with responsibilities to small children. All of that spawns the beginning of Edna's sad, slow, lonely, and ultimately fatal, "awakening" that summer at Grande Isle. Initially within this novel, Edna Pontellier simply admits, implicitly, to herself if not yet aloud to anyone else,
Therefore, Edna has committed herself, for life, to duties to husband, children, family, and social interests. The dual stimuli of Robert Lebrun and enforced social indolence when summering at Grande Isle, in combination, bring Edna's personal crisis to a head. Even though Kate Chopin was already a known, widely-respected author of novels, short stories, and essays well before her writing and publication of The Awakening (Wyatt, 2007); and while the very earliest reviews of the book were actually very positive (Sprinkle); this praise for Chopin's newest, most cutting-edge literary endeavor did not last long among either reviewers or the general public at all (Wyatt). This begins (within the story itself, at least) when Edna initially reaches beyond and outside her household, at first in mere conversational visits with other, more (if distinctly) contented women that summer. Today, for better or worse, we now recognize truths about life and human relationships in Kate Chopin's The Awakening. In the novel itself, though, all of this for which Edna is soundly criticized by Kate Chopin's readers of The Awakening, in 1899, simply increases Edna's overall anger and depression about the limiting circumstances of her life. As Chopin also tells us within this same scene: Edna was . Edna's search for a concrete and obtainable key to her possible self-actualization, despite (and/or even in place of) her present domestic circumstances, next leads her to engage in full-blown extra-marital affairs, including one with the opportunistic Alcee Arobin, in her continued if fruitless efforts to calm her agitated mind and spirit. Once she learns to swim with enough confidence, strength, and skill, Edna loves swimming in the ocean, especially. Some sounds are melodious, inspiring, and beautiful, e. After Leonce falls asleep, Edna comforts herself from his harsh and critical remarks by walking outside on her own, where there is "no sound except the hooting of an old owl . Edna's suicide at the end of the novel was also considered, by critics and average readers alike, to be selfish, unnecessary, or otherwise disturbing (Wyatt, 2007), especially considering that she would leave behind her two, now motherless, small boys (Wyatt; Sprinkle).
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Acceptance Essays
