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Lulú De Panbehchi
Marcel Cornis-Pope
English 531
February 15, 2009
From Irresponsibility to Free Will: Response Analysis of Chopin's The Awakening
1. RESPONSE STATEMENT. Horizon of Expectations.
Before this class, I had no previous information about The Awakening, Kate
Chopin, or the movie Grand Isle. I expected the novel to be a great novel because it is
the only fiction text required in this class. The book's cover depicts a couple of women
under the sun, one of them is reading a book, but she has the book down and she looks
like she is thinking. The impressionist style painting makes me think about the 19th
century, high society, women and their daily life who do something extraordinaire. The
tile suggests that a woman will discover something or has a religious conversion.
(note Rn1) Judging by the title and cover, I expected a novel with pages an pages of
description, a the complete biography of each character before saying a word, and very
long dialogues. My initial expectations were fulfilled up to a certain point after the first
reading. First, the novel is short, the descriptions are very simple and dynamic, the
dialogue may sound unrealistic in some parts but the fact that it is peppered with French
makes it more credible; and second, the main character is a woman who suffers a
moral, spiritual and artistic transformation.
After comparing my notes from both readings, I realized that I made use of
several of my senses in the first reading, I focused on the landscape, places and smells.
(Rr1) My interest was mainly Edna's irresponsibilities as a mother and her affair with
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Robert. I identified with Mme. Ratignolle, not because I feel pretty and rich, but
because she was able to discern what was morally and culturally appropriate. In my
second reading, I focused more on the philosophical and religious aspects of the novel
and Edna's perspective. I did the second reading with the idea that this text was a
collection of vignettes (Rr2) or interconnected short stories. The description is less
satisfying the second time, but the narrator's voice is stronger now than before.
2. RESPONSE ANALYSIS. a) Cognitive Analysis of Your Response.
Edna awakes from her practical and dispassionate marriage to Léonce Pontellier
to the idea of free will and self-indulgence with the help or reference of some of the
characters near her. Her friendship with Mme. Adèle Ratignolle serves as a reference
of what a perfect mother, wife, and friend should be. Adèle is the representation of the
perfect woman according to the Creole society and perhaps to the American society of
those times. Adèle is so perfect that she seems like an implausible character, whose
only flaw is to be so delicate, but being delicate is part of being a perfect woman
according to the times. The narrator describes Edna as not being pretty, and as not
“motherly.” (Rn2) The reader also knows what is expected from Edna because Adèle
comments on Edna's actions. Adèle's voice resonates as the voice of prudence and
reason and she expects Edna to learn more about the Creole culture by following her.
However, Adèle does not pressure Edna too much, because she understands how
different both are. Only when Edna's affair with Arobin becomes apparent, Adèle gives
her an ultimatum, they cannot be friends anymore if Edna choses to keep a dissolute
life. Adèle and the doctor have the same point of view, however her ideas and words
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weight more because of her gender and close relationship with Edna. The doctor
represents the theory and the male view, while Adèle provides the “practice” on how
women should behave.
The opposite of Mme. Ratignolle is Mlle. Reisz, who represents the artistic
perspective of life and to a certain point a model of the independent woman. Reisz lives
frugally by herself and may not be pretty or rich, but she enjoys not having any tides,
even with the people who beg on the street. She does not feel obligated to tell Edna that
she is a good artist, or that Robert wrote to them—maybe he knows that Reisz will let
Edna read his letters. Mlle. Reisz represents the artist who lives for her art and does
not follow all the moral rules. Edna amuses her and she enjoys to see Edna leaving her
husband, having affairs, and painting worthless art. Maybe, when Edna becomes
independent like Reisz, the latter will consider the protagonist an artist. While Adèle is
the departure, Reisz may be the destination.
However, after the second reading, I believe that after Edna comes home to find
that Robert has left, Mlle. Reisz no longer represents the destination, but rather the
middle of road for Edna. If she had not committed suicide, Edna's alternative would
have been to live as another Mlle. Reisz, with the difference that she would not be
completely alone because of her children and maybe Robert. Adèle and Reisz
represent extreme options for Edna, but they have something in common, both are
fragile. Edna is physically taller and stronger than her friends, and at the end her will
power is also stronger.
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At first, the reader may think that Edna started to change while at Grand Isle, but
on a second look, her change actually begun when she decided to marry Léonce just
because her father did not completely agreed. Marring Léonce, a man from a different
environment, culture, and language was as random as betting at the races, going out
with Arobin, or having an affair with Robert. This sense of randomness and gambling
excites her, because it means that her family, her friends, society and God are not
controlling her. This way she has more freedom than Mlle. Reisz and her husband—
who has to keep up with les convenances. Mme. Ratignolle realizes that Edna does not
read the Bible as other protestants do, (Rn3) which means that Edna has an existential
crises.
Léonce, Adèle, Ratignolle, Mme. Lebrun, and even the doctor let Edna know
what is expected from her, but do not try to change her mind completely. One reason
may be les covenances, but this is a very simple explanation. The only philosophical or
religious explanation that I can find is the liberum arbitrium or “free will” (Rr3). As
Catholics, they all know that they ultimately can tell Edna what to believe, but they
cannot obligate her. Even if Mr. Pontellier says that he loves his wife and he acts with
the doctor like he really cares about her, he knows that it will not be worthy to try to
change her mind. One of the criticisms about the Creole culture was that they were
always trying to be richer than they were, which in a way took away diminish their free
will. Edna's dizziness at church is a projection of her rejection of the Catholic religion
and the Creole culture, but she has grasped one of the core points in the Catholic
faith—free will.
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One way of liberating herself is by being careless, which was the reason I did not
identify with Edna in my first reading.
Another way is by letting her senses connect
with beauty, or what she considers beautiful, even if beautiful objects, places, and
people are prohibited to a married woman. Maybe this is the reason I thought during
my first reading that Edna's relationship with Adèle had a hint of lesbianism; (Rn4) a
second reading with idea of beauty contemplation makes the scene at the beach more
aesthetic than sexual. Later, when Edna sketches Adèle we see the product of her
study and contemplation of her friend. Edna's description of blue grass esplanades
and her dreams of the ocean are both very sensual scenes. Arobin and Robert please
her because they both pay attention to her wishes and desires, and they are both very
handsome. Music and painting, architecture and flowers please her senses too. Her
husband is older than her, probably not as handsome as Arobin and Robert and he
mostly imposes his taste in food, art, decoration, and manners. Edna wants to be
flattered and cared for instead of caring and flattering others, who include Léonce and
her children.
There are a few images that I still have in my head, for example Edna learning
how to swim, the walk at midnight to the beach, Robert and Edna at Mme. Antoine's
house, Léonce adding mustard to the soup—I just love mustard--, and Edna cleaning
her new house. Most of these scenes seem not to be related to my predominant
reading of free will, but in a way they make me connect more with Edna and even with
her husband. Swimming is a skill that I lack, maybe because everybody believes that
they are the ones who will ultimately teach me how to swim. Swimming connects the
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individual with a body of water and constant risk; in other words if Edna does not know
how to swim, trying becomes gambling, just like walking at midnight to the shoreline
even if the moon is full or taking a trip with another man to a unknown island. When
Edna is cleaning her new house, I imagine her like the lady in that famous “We Can Do
It” poster.
Some words and phrases have followed me for a few weeks now, like “to go
about,” “clatter, clatter,” and “Ah, si tu savais.” This is the first time I hear or read this
phrase and it appears several times while they are in Grand Isle. One spelling that
caught my attention was the exclamation sign in the middle of a sentence without
having a capital letter or a comma following, for example, “Then in God's name paint!
but don't let the family go to the devil...” (p. 79)
I associate some aspects of this novel with stories by Benito Pérez Galdós and
other naturalist writers from Spain, as well as the some of the stories by Guy de
Maupassant. The idea that women need to behave in certain ways in order to build a
nation and tame wild new nationals reminds me of Amy Kaplan's “Domesticity
Manifesto.” (Rn5) The topic about teaching women how to behave when they interact
with men from a different culture is very common on newspapers published in Santa Fe,
New Mexico in the decade of 1890. I have scanned over a decade of newspapers from
the region and they are very specific and blunt about how Mexican women should
behave and that they should marry Mexicans instead of Americans.
In a personal level, I relate to Edna in several ways, I am an immigrant woman
who married a man who speaks my language and share part of my Hispanic heritage,
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but he grew up in a very different environment. My husband believes, like Léonce, that
we have to live in a house full of art pieces or at least reproductions of them; the
difference is that my husband is an art historian, not a rich stock broker. I am Catholic
and worked for the Catholic church in Mexico for four years. This fact probably
influenced my second reading of The Awakening and the idea of free will.
In my first reading, I missed the early information about Arobin, also the
description of the sea during the first chapters had a very different meaning—they are
more connected than I thought to the end. Since I knew the end, the dialogues were
more convincing during the second reading. The narrator seems to take the point of
view of Mme. Ratignolle when talking about Edna, but it actually lets Edna enjoy more
the scenery and beauty. In other words, there is more showing of Edna's determination
than explanations of it. The narrator is omniscient when dealing with women, but it
does not explores more the thoughts of men—they are a mystery. I feel like the
narrator presents this woman to the reader, but it does not judges her because it lets
Adèle, Pontellier, Mme. Lebrun, the doctor, and the father weight her acts.
This is the first novel in English from this period and region that I read in my life.
It was a surprise for me to have a short and dynamic text that was more philosophical
than it looked. I read very slowly and usually remember the ideas and topics more than
complete dialogues and descriptions, however, to my surprise when I saw the movie I
realized that I remembered a lot of text. (Rr4)
b) Cultural Analysis of Your Response
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The novel tells the story of a woman in 1890 New Orleans. She is in between
two cultures that are not my cultures in their totality, which explains why I do not share
all the values with any of the main characters. However, I identify up to some extent
with Edna because of her “immigrant” situation—even if it is inside the United States,
New Orleans differs too much from the midwest, it is a wild frontier. I would not do what
Edna did, but I understand why she tries to live an independent life and a more
aesthetic environment. Mme. Ratignolle is still the common sense, but Mlle. Reisz
does not represent an extreme anymore. My biases are the same I singled out in the
first reading, Edna is careless with her children. I also believe that Edna should treat her
servants with a different attitude since the very beginning; she only treats her maids
nicely when she moves to Esplanade Street.
Edna lives in between languages like me. (Rr5) The effort by Chopin to use two
languages and refer a third one makes me think that she was ahead of her time, or at
least ahead of millions of US citizens who today reject the idea of learning a second
language and hate the fact that English is not the only language of this country. Of
course, the second language in this novel is French, the dominant language of that
time.
During the first reading, the narrative of this novel can be ironic. The incongruity
comes from the fact that the narrator makes the reader focus on Edna's relationship
with Robert, that he/she expects the “awakening” to be a divorce from her husband, or
at least an independent life like Mlle. Reisz. But the suicide at the end concludes a trip
to the total independence and the freedom of choosing when to terminate one's life.
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My dominant reading here is that Edna ended her life because it was the most
logical result of her search of free will. This reading also clarifies to me why I focused
on the landscape, places, smell and even itchiness in my first reading—because Edna
also approached her world with her senses.