The Awakening
Chopin, Kate
This novel is about a woman in the late 1800s who rejects the traditional roles of wife and mother and explores her newfound “freedom,” both emotionally and sexually. It was Chopin’s second and final novel, published in 1899. The book was widely criticized for its frank, open discussion of the emotional and sexual "needs" of women, which culminate in a romanticized suicide. For example, consider the review of Chopin's work from Lewis Leary, of The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He begins his review by quoting another "professional" editor, "As Kenneth Eble, first modern editor of The Awakening, has said, "quite frankly the book is about sex."
Leary goes on to write...
"The Awakening...one of Mrs. Chopin's more successful examinations...whether marriage is or is not "a wonderful and powerful agent in the development and formation of a woman's character."
"...the submission of women and their struggle against submitting is a theme which pervades much, perhaps all, of Mrs. Chopin's fiction."
"For whatever its excellences otherwise, The Awakening is bold, and its title tells exactly what it is about."
"Edna Pontellier was ...a self-indulgent sensualist..."
"Her awakening, only vaguely intellectual, is disturbingly physical."
"The voice of the sea is seductive...the sea whispers the strong and "delicious" word death."
Click here to view the first page of the review which states, "quite frankly the book is about sex."
Parents should be aware of content such as adultery (with no remorse), suicide, and extreme sensuality. It is another dark, depressing book.
The Citizens for Academic Responsibility (a community effort to keep parents in touch with their public school in Richland, Washington) questioned the agenda of Awakening in their review.
Portions of an online review found at Holt Uncensored follow:
“The Awakening is a short novel with a simple plot. Edna is the 29-year-old wife of a prosperous New Orleans Creole businessman, and the mother of two young boys. She, like other wives of her privileged class, is spending the summer with her children and servants on Grand Isle, a resort off the coast of Louisiana. She is visited on weekends by her husband Léonce, who is by turns indulgent, indifferent, and peevish...Edna comes from a Presbyterian family in Kentucky and feels a bit of an outsider among her Catholic Creole friends. To her they seem shockingly free in their speech, especially with loose young men like Robert, who is always hanging around, flattering the ladies as they flirt with him... She has fallen in love, for the first time, with Robert...
...Back in New Orleans Edna takes up her old hobby of painting... To her husband's consternation she stops holding the Tuesday at-homes that are so vital to their social position and, thus, his business interests. She also refuses to continue the tedious, time-consuming occupation of daily social visits which are the major duty of rich women. When her children go to visit their grandmother and her husband goes on a business trip, she moves to a smaller house where she can live more simply and paint...Edna is vulnerable to the attentions of Arobin, an idle unattached male who is not so harmless. When she finally lets Arobin kiss her, "It was the first kiss of her life to which her nature had really responded. It was a flaming torch that kindled desire."
...Edna has experienced her first orgasm, and following it, post-orgasmic clarity of thought. "Above all, there was understanding... a mist had been lifted from her eyes... among the conflicting sensations which assailed her, there was neither shame nor remorse," only "a dull pang of regret because it was not the kiss of love which had... held this cup of life to her lips." ...Edna's intelligence is not part of an aversion to sex but is fused with sex — sex with or without love, an amazing fact that contradicts everything she has been taught is "natural" to a woman.
...Edna's physical orgasm is an orgasm of the mind as well, a burst of light on many realities that have been systematically denied. She relaxes into "understanding" the imperative of her sexual drive, independent of "love." She is, for the first time, beginning to "comprehend the significance of life, that monster made up of beauty and brutality….Edna shows no shame, no remorse for her adultery...
Edna reaches some hard conclusions:...that her passion for him will fade — "Today it is Arobin; tomorrow it will be someone else;" that the freedom of her mind and her body are essential to her — are life itself; that no one has the right to hold her to rules that strangle either; that she cares for the feelings of no one — except... "The children appeared before her like antagonists who had overcome her; who had overpowered and sought to drag her into the soul's slavery for the rest of her days. But she knew a way to elude them."
Edna travels back to the island, to live out her statement that she would give up her life but not her self for her children. (Despondent,) she strips and swims out to sea (committing suicide).
Click here to read the entire text online.