"The Awakening"

Charles So

English 48B

March 2, 2011
Journal for Chopin

Author Quote:
"In short, Mrs. Pontellier was beginning to realize her position in the universe as a human being, and to recognize her relations as an individual to the world with and about her... How few of us ever emerge from such beginnings! How many souls perish in its tumult!" (544)

Internet Quote:
"the plot centers around Edna Pontellier and her struggle to reconcile her increasingly unorthodox views on femininity and motherhood with the prevailing social attitudes of the turn-of-the-century South. It is one of the earliest American novels that focuses on women's issues without condescension. It is also widely seen as a landmark work of early feminism." (Wikipedia search The Awakening)

Summary:

Edna Pontellier the wife of Leonce Pontellier and a young mother of two is going through an "awakening" her riveting revelation is the core of the entire story. Edna is characterized as the customary southern girl that got married off and became entrapped in that role for her lifetime. Then through complex situations, beginning at the Grand Isle she becomes emotionally and mentally freed, she begins to desire and feel emotions in her that becomes more individualistic and self fulfilling. She then with her new found state of mind begins to assert, approach and act in a very different way a in which she feels great but has no sense of it.

Personal Opinion:

Though the story had a definitive regional and cultural aspect to it it really didn't distract from the main plot of story from being the main attraction. The Creole slang, vernacular, scenic background, and attitude makes story more robust and vivid and created more texture to the plot compared to writings that i read like Edith Wharton's "The Other Two" which i thought is similiar because the topic is about social norms and discourses. Chopins romanticism towards that region and the Creole people is very attractive but along with its all to real message on women's suffrage the romanticism strikingly mixes feminist realism.

It was awfully sad that Edna felt that the way she felt, for her to just swim off to her death, that felt like a punch in the gut for hope, but realistically that was probably the only ending possible that would allow the book to be published as its ideas were very post modern.