Outcast of the Universe A Psychoanalysis of Edna Pontellier in The Awakening Key Lacanian concepts • “random, fragmented, formless” mass • Mirror stage (preverbal) Imaginary Order (Desire of the Mother, later unconscious) • Acquisition of language Symbolic Order (experience of loss) • Other (What we are taught/inspired to desire in the Symbolic Order) • objet petit a [autre] (what we actually need) Other (expected end) • Hildebrand: to be a solitary genius (white, male, at least middle class) • Innate gifts (rather than acquired through training) • Sales of artworks in the marketplace • Ramos: the unattainable yet always longed-for lovers • a dignified and sad-eyed cavalry officer; a young gentleman who visited a lady on a neighboring plantation; the face and figure of a great tragedian; Robert Lebrun; Alcée Arobin… Edna’s absence of maternal care Very brief introduction of Edna’s family background: • […] their mother having died when they were quite young (Chopin 43) • The rigid and military father • The not effusive, practical, matronly, dignified older sister Margaret Subversion/Oscillation between sexual roles • Sensuous (close to sexual) relations with women and herself • Madame Ratignolle laid her hand over that of Mrs. Pontellier, which was near her. Seeing Seeing that the hand was not withdrawn, she clasped it firmly and warmly. She even stroked it a little, fondly, with the other hand, murmuring in an undertone, “Pauvre chérie” (Chopin 42). • She had put her head down on Madame Ratignolle’s shoulder. She was flushed and felt intoxicated with the sound of her own voice and the unaccustomed taste of candor. It muddled her like wine, or like a first breath of freedom (Chopin 44-5). • But the very passions themselves were aroused within her soul, swaying it, lashing it, as the waves daily beat upon her splendid body (Chopin 54) [even vaguely masochistic] • She looked at her round arms as she held them straight up and rubbed them one after the other, observing closely, as if it were something she saw for the first time (Chopin 7070-1) A little bit of digression on the piece Reisz played • Prelude op. 28, no. 24 by Frederic Chopin (a little punning here) • Opens with a thundering five-note pattern in the left hand. Throughout the piece, the left hand continues this pattern as the right hand melody is punctuated by trills, scales (including a rapid descending chromatic scale in thirds), and arpeggios. The piece closes with three booming unaccompanied low Ds on the piano. • Cortot: of blood, of earthly pleasure, of death • Bülow: the storm • Martha Argerich’s version recommended Subversion/Oscillation between sexual roles • To assume the role of male artists (adopting the “male gaze”) • She had long wished to try herself on Madame Ratignolle. Never had that lady seemed a more tempting subject than at that moment, seated there like some sensuous Madonna, with the gleam of the fading day enriching her splendid color (Chopin 32) • Upon his arrival she began by introducing him [Edna’s father] to her her atelier and making a sketch of him. He took the whole matter very seriously […] Before her pencil he sat rigid and unflinching, as he had faced the cannon’s mouth in days gone by (Chopin 117) Subversion/Oscillation between sexual roles • To be male (imitating the male image of her imagination) • When she heard it there came before her imagination the figure of a man standing beside a desolate rock on the seashore. He was naked. His attitude was one of hopeless resignation as he looked toward a distant bird winging its flight away from him (Chopin 54) • […] for the first time in her life she stood naked in the open air, at the mercy of the sun, the breeze that beat upon her, and the waves Imaginary Oneness with Romantic Partners • Display of female passion [opposed to the female “passionlessness” assumption of mid 19th century] • No multitude of words could have been more significant than those moments of of silence, or more pregnant with the firstfelt throbbings of desire (Chopin 59) • It was his being, his existence, which dominated her thought, fading sometimes sometimes as if it would melt into the mist of the forgotten, reviving again with an intensity which filled her with an incomprehensible longing (Chopin 98) • He stood close to her, and the effrontery in his eyes repelled the old, vanishing self in her, yet drew all her awakening sensuousness (Chopin 134) Imaginary Oneness with Romantic Partners • But whim-driven passion without forethought • Kearns: sublimity, a pleasurable “delirium” or ecstasy • “Why do you love him when you ought not to?” “Why? Because his hair is brown and grows away from his temples; because he opens and shuts his eyes, and his nose is a little out of drawing; because he has two lips and a square chin, and a little finger which he can’t straighten from having played baseball too energetically in his youth. Because—” “Because you do, in short. What will you do when he comes back?” “Do? Nothing, except feel glad and happy to be alive.” (Chopin 139) Destruction of Symbolic Order • Violence toward surrounding objects • In a sweeping passion she seized a glass vase from the table and flung it upon the tiles of the hearth. She wanted to destroy something. The crash and clatter were what she wanted to hear (Chopin 96) • Once she stopped, and taking off her wedding ring, flung it upon the carpet. When she saw it lying there, she stamped her heel upon it, striving to crush it. But her small boot heel did not make an indenture, not a mark upon the little glittering circlet (Chopin 96) • External, supernatural force: She wanted something to happen— something, anything; she did not know what (Chopin 132) Destruction of Symbolic Order • World-weariness • But the beginning of things, of a world especially, is necessarily vague, tangled, chaotic, and exceedingly disturbing. How few of us ever emerge from such beginning! How many souls perish in its tumult! (Chopin 34) • The street, the children, the fruit vender, the flowers growing there under her eyes, were all part and parcel of an alien world which had suddenly become antagonistic (Chopin 97) • […] when life appeared to her like a grotesque pandemonium and humanity like worms struggling blindly toward inevitable annihilation (Chopin 102) Actual consequence of Edna’s efforts • Solipsism and self-absorption (inert to the Symbolic Order) • Caught between the life possibilities of Madame Ratignolle and Mademoiselle Reisz • Ratignolle: married, carrying out family duties, relatively happy with the status quo • Reisz: unmarried, remaining a solitary artist, though weird in social opinion • Edna’s identity blur: married, mother of two, but desiring extramarital romance and solitary life of male artist Back to Lacan • Our desires, beliefs, biases, and so forth are constructed for us as a result of our immersion in the Symbolic Order […] And it is our responses to our society’s ideologies that make us who we are (Tyson 31) • Edna’s efforts to fulfill her desire inspired by the Symbolic Order run contrary to the Symbolic Order per se, hence definitely fail. • Edna’s failure to respond to the Symbolic Order in her own way finally rids her of her identity/self. Works Cited Chopin, Kate, and Sheri Metzger. Cliffscomplete the Awakening. Cliffs Notes, 2009. Hildebrand, Molly J. “The Masculine Sea: Gender, Art, and Suicide in Kate Chopin’s the Awakening.” American Literary Realism, vol. 48, no. 3, 2016, pp. 189–208, https://doi.org10.5406/amerlitereal.48.3.0189. Ramos, Peter. “Unbearable Realism: Freedom, Ethics and Identity in the Awakening.” College Literature, vol. 37, no. 4, 2010, pp. 145–165, https://doi.org10.1353/lit.2010.0001. Tyson, Lois. Critical Theory Today: A User-Friendly Guide. CRC Press, 2006. Showalter, Elaine. “Tradition and the Female Talent: The Awakening as a Solitary Book.” New Essays on The Awakening, edited by Wendy Martin, Cambridge University Press, 1988, pp. 33–58. Wikipedia contributors. “Preludes (Chopin).” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 5 Mar. 2023, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Preludes_(Chopin)&oldid=1143088503. Wershoven, C. J. “‘The Awakening and The House of Mirth:’ Studies of Arrested Development.” American Literary Realism, 1870-1910, vol. 19, no. 3, 1987, pp. 27–41.
