Unconscious Passivity and Submission in The Awakening
The Awakening by Kate Chopin explores Edna's journey towards defining herself as a person separate from her husband, children, and domestic life. Edna realizes her desire and her need to define her selfhood. Her awakening, however, fails to free her from the constraints of traditional expectations for women. She purveys the "prevailing stereotypes of passive femininity" (Martin) through her inability to connect herself to her own will, emotions, and sexual feelings. The fact that Edna's awakening occurs by means of her relationships with men reveals the irony of her quest to define her selfhood. Edna is not intimate with her husband because, "She fancied there was a sympathy of thought and taste between them, in which fancy she was mistaken" (Chopin 32). Edna does not love her husband, but she "
The paradox of her awakening is not that she does not discover her sexuality, but that she remains asleep to herself as the vehicle of self-discovery. Edna is unconsciously passive and submissive, reinforcing traditional gender norms for women even in her mission to break free of passive femininity. Chopin also attributes Edna's tendency to submit to her own will and desires. When Mademoiselle Reisz plays, "the very passions themselves were aroused within [Edna's] soul, swaying it, lashing it, as the waves daily beat upon her splendid body" (Chopin 44). That Edna feels the "passions within her soul" indicates the liberating aspect of self-discovery, but Chopin's diction reproaches this concept. fancies" her marriage in order to keep up the appearance of love and submits to her role as wife and mother despite her inner feelings of rebellion. Edna yields to her own will like she becomes "supple to [Arobin's] gentle, seductive entreaties" (Chopin 154). She retains the idea that the ability to explore her sexuality is "imported" from some outside source without considering that she is the source of her own sexual desires. She is 2unable to connect herself to her own will and feelings because, "Hers is the realm of the unconscious, the subjective, of receptivity and reverie," stereotypes she purveys as "characteristics traditionally ascribed to the female psyche. Her unconscious self-estrangement results in her feeling as though she is not responsible for the state of her life, a notion contrary to her struggle for selfhood. Edna's internal conflict makes her suicide, "a regressive act that is the result of arrested emotional development" (Martin). No liberation occurs because Edna actually is submissive to her sexual desires, to her passions that "sway" and "lash" her. When she refuses to enter the house at her husband's command, "She perceived that her will had blazed up, stubborn and resistant. The sea is a metaphor for the futility of Edna's realization of herself as a sexual person.
Common topics in this essay:
Kate Chopin,
Mademoiselle Reisz,
passive femininity,
connect own,
sexual desires,
define selfhood,
edna's awakening,
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Acceptance Essays
