The Awakening in Reading with Style

Oct 15, 2013 Connie G rated it really liked it

Shelves: 1001-books, book-club, classic, alp-discussion, feminism-women, louisiana, rereading

Published in 1899, "The Awakening" is a story revolving around personal and sexual freedom for women. The book was set in New Orleans and nearby coastal areas where women--and any property they accumulated after marriage--were considered the property of their husbands. Divorce was almost non-existent in that Catholic area.

Edna and Leonce Pontellier are vacationing at a coastal resort with their two little sons. Leonce is a generous husband in material ways, but does not connect well emotionally Published in 1899, "The Awakening" is a story revolving around personal and sexual freedom for women. The book was set in New Orleans and nearby coastal areas where women--and any property they accumulated after marriage--were considered the property of their husbands. Divorce was almost non-existent in that Catholic area.

Edna and Leonce Pontellier are vacationing at a coastal resort with their two little sons. Leonce is a generous husband in material ways, but does not connect well emotionally with his wife. Edna falls in love with Robert Lebrun, a young man at the resort, who awakens Edna emotionally. Robert leaves for Mexico since he realizes that a relationship with a married woman would not have a good outcome in 19th Century society.

Edna befriends two women with contrasting lifestyles. Madame Ratignolle is a perfect wife and mother. Mademoiselle Reisz, a pianist, expresses herself through music and has a very independent life. Edna is unhappy in her life as a wife and mother, even though she has servants to do most of the work in the home. She has the opportunity to rebel when her husband goes on a long business trip and their children are sent to their grandmother's house for an extended stay. She begins a dalliance with Alcee Arobin, a man with a reputation of chasing married women. She asserts her independence by moving out of her large house into a smaller abode, expressing herself in her artwork, and is awakened as a sexual woman. When Robert returns later, she says, "I am no longer one of Mr Pontellier's possessions to dispose of or not. I give myself where I choose."

The book was very controversial because Edna left her husband and children for her own freedom, a move that would be socially shocking at the turn of the century. Even today, society looks down severely on women who abandon their children. Early in the book, it was stated, "Mrs Pontellier was not a mother-woman." Near the end of the book, it said, "Despondency had come upon her there in the wakeful night and never lifted....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."

The book has wonderful imagery of hunger and food, the draw of the sea, birds in flight, birds in cages, sleeping and awakening. Edna was a woman who could not live with the restrictions of 19th Century society. Finally she hears the call of the sea, "The voice of the sea is seductive, never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander in abysses of solitude. All along the white beach, up and down, there was no living thing in sight. A bird with a broken wing was beating the air above, reeling, fluttering, circling disabled down, down to the water." ...more

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Oct 05, 2022 Shirley (stampartiste) rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: read-classics, published-1899-and-earlier, challenge-bingo-2022

This book has been on my shelf for quite some time. I have been reluctant to read it because I wasn’t sure this story would be my style, but I needed to read a Banned Book for a challenge, so I thought I would finally give it a go.

The first thing that struck me was Chopin’s simple, direct prose. Her style immediately drew me into the story, and her insertion of French expressions just as immediately drew me into the Creole culture of south Louisiana. I knew I would enjoy this story.

I loved the w This book has been on my shelf for quite some time. I have been reluctant to read it because I wasn’t sure this story would be my style, but I needed to read a Banned Book for a challenge, so I thought I would finally give it a go.

The first thing that struck me was Chopin’s simple, direct prose. Her style immediately drew me into the story, and her insertion of French expressions just as immediately drew me into the Creole culture of south Louisiana. I knew I would enjoy this story.

I loved the way that Chopin slowly developed the character of Edna Pontellier, a 28-year old wife and mother at the center of this story. When we first meet Edna, she is spending the summer with her family on the island of Grand Isle, a favorite summer vacationing spot at the turn of the 20th century for New Orleans elite, most particularly the Creoles.

Chopin reveals the slow awakening of Edna Pontellier’s self-awareness as a person separate and apart from her husband and children. Edna's unhappiness is not motivated by a lack of love for her family, nor of mistreatment or disrespect by her husband, Léonce. It is the sudden realization that she does not find satisfaction in motherhood as other women do and there must be more to life than that.

Once Edna and her family return to New Orleans, Edna begins to assert her will (refusing to go to her sister’s wedding, refusing to host the societal norm of “visiting days”, etc.). The turmoil she goes through as she begins to make decisions that are outside the norm, and her loving husband’s patience in giving Edna the freedom to take actions that affect his standing in society made me care deeply for these two people.

The third man character in the story is a 26-year old Creole bachelor, Robert Lebrun, who would playfully and innocently devote himself to one of the women on Grand Isle each summer. His chivalric manners also made me care for this young man whose flirtatious ways lead to circumstances beyond his code of conduct. It is hard for us to fathom today how this book was banned, but in its day, there were strict rules that governed the actions of people in society. Twenty years later, Edith Wharton’s book, The Age of Innocence would also touch on this theme.

The Awakening was a thoughtful story and an enlightening look at how much society has changed in a hundred years. ...more

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