LITERARY MOVEMENTS
AND THE AWAKENING
DAY 3
AMERICAN ROMANTIC MOVEMENT
(1800-1850’S)
• Expressed the assertion of the self, the power of the individual,
a sense of the infinite, and transcendental nature of the
universe.
• Major themes included the sublime, terror, and passion.
• The writing extolled the primal power of nature and the
spiritual link between nature and man, and was often
emotional, marked by a sense of liberty, filled with dreamy
inner contemplations, exotic settings, memories of childhood,
scenes of unrequited love, and exiled heroes.
• They also tended in sculpture and paintings to return to the
mythological to express the primal nature of mankind.
• American Realism also emphasized the conquering of lands
and conquering of personal demons.
• The major writers of the period were Irving, Cooper, Emerson,
Poe, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Whitman, Dickinson, and Melville.
SEARCH FOR SELF
• Edna's search for individuality and freedom: freedom to
decide what to be, how to think, and how to live. This
search amounts to her own romantic quest for a holy
grail, a grail of self-definition. In the process two classic
motifs of the Romantic movement occur: rebellion
against society and death.
• “She could only realize that she herself—her present
self—was in some way different from the other self. That
she was seeing with different eyes and making the
acquaintance of new conditions in herself that colored
and changed her environment, she did not yet suspect”
(XIV, 69)
PRIMAL POWER OF NATURE
• Perhaps the most obvious and elemental are the exotic
locale, use of color, and heavy emphasis on nature.
• Frequent inner thoughts, memories of childhood, the
personified sea and its sensuous call, the fantastic talking
birds, the mysterious woman in black, the romantic
music playing almost constantly in the background, the
dinner party, the gulf spirit, and the desire to express
herself through art.
• “She could hear again the ripple of the water, the
flapping sail. She could see the glint of the moon upon
the bay, and could feel the soft, gusty beating of the hot
south wind. A subtle current of desire passed through
the body, weakening her hold upon the brushes and
making her eyes burn.” (end of XIX, 96)
AMERICAN REALISM
• Realism developed as a reaction against Romanticism
and stressed the real over the fantastic.
• The movement sought to treat the commonplace
truthfully and used characters from everyday life.
• Writers probed the recesses of the human mind via an
exploration of the emotional landscape of characters.
• Local color, an offshoot of realism, attempts to capture
a community of people.
• Women local colorists were concerned with the place of
women in society and the moral designs called for in a
life.
• Freemen, Stowe, Harris, Chesnutt, and Cable were all
important local colorists.
THE NOVEL AND AMERICAN REALISM
• The characters that Chopin places in the novel, with all their flaws and
their eccentricities, also a real world to develop. It is also the physical
description of the people and the landscapes attempts to give the
realism that Chopin seeks when she paints Madame Ratignolle. This is
seen also in her visits to the various New Orleans residences.
• The description of Mademoiselle Reisz’s apartment at the opening of XXI.
• Edna’s response to Madame Ratignolle about Leonce and going to the
club: “It’s a pity Mr. Pontellier doesn’t stay home more in the evenings. I
think you would be more—well, if you don’t mind me saying it—more
united if he did.” “Oh! Dear no!” said Edna, with a blank look in her eyes,
“What should I do if he stayed home? We wouldn’t have anything to say
to each other” (XXIII 112)
• The relationship between men and women and the economic aspects
that go along with that issue are also realistic. Edna is "owned" at various
points in the novel by her father, husband, Arobin, and Robert. Victor
(Robert’s brother) speaks of women in terms of possession, and Leonce is
shown to class her as property, and to see her as a symbol of his social
status. Edna herself remarks that as she moves into the pigeon house she
feels she is lower on the social rank.
• In terms of local color, Chopin uses Edna’s inspection of Creole culture at
Grand Isle and later in terms of the creation of her daily life in New
Orleans. Here, a portrait of women’s lives develops.
LOCAL COLOR OF NEW ORLEANS
• “The Pontelliers possessed a very charming home on Esplanade Street in
New Orleans. It was a large, double cottage, with a broad front veranda,
whose round, fluted columns supported the sloping roof. The house was
painted a dazzling white; the outside shutters, or jalousies, were green. In
the yard, which was kept scrupulously neat, were flowers and plants of
every description which flourishes in South Louisiana. Within doors the
appointments were perfect after the conventional type. The softest
carpets and rugs covered the floors; rich and tasteful draperies hung at
doors and windows. There were paintings, selected with judgment and
discrimination, upon the walls. The cut glass, the silver, the heavy damask
which daily appeared upon the table were the envy of many women
whose husbands were less generous than Mr. Pontellier.
• “Mr. Pontellier was very fond of walking about his house examining its
various appointments and details, to see that nothing was amiss. He
greatly valued his possessions, chiefly because they were his, and derived
genuine pleasure from contemplating a painting, a statuette, a rare lace
curtain -- no matter what -- after he had bought it and placed it among
his household gods.’ (Opening Chapter XVII 83/49-50)
NATURALISM
• Naturalism grew out of Realism and stressed the
uncaring aspect of nature and the genetic,
biological destiny of man.
• Naturalists believed that man's instinctual, basic
drives dominated their actions and could not be
evaded.
• Life was viewed as relentless, without a caring
presence to intervene.
• Twain, Crane, London, Norris, Howells, James, and
Dreiser were the major writers of this movement.
NATURALISM AND THE NOVEL
• The aspect of naturalism most evident in The Awakening
is the portrayal of Edna as hostage to her biology.
• She is female, has children, and is a wife in a society that
dictates behavioral norms based on those conditions.
These factors drive the novel and drive Edna.
• The novel is also true to the real life aspects of Realism
and Naturalism in its forthright dealing with sexual
matters: Leonce's allusion that they no longer sleep
together, Robert’s touch of her clothes after she awakes,
the naked man on the rock on Grand Isle.
WOMEN’S RIGHTS AND FEMINISM
• Mary Wollstonecraft (mother of Mary Shelley who wrote
Frankenstein) published the Vindication of the Rights of
Women during the Romantic movement. The more formalized
call for the advancement of women begun.
• Women in America, through the Abolition Movement, gained
entranced to the political scene with the call to end slavery.
• Many of these women remained politically involved and set
about getting the right to vote for women in America,
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, being a significant force.
• This was furthered by the idea of social reforms concerning the
poor, the orphaned, and the mentally ill. Charlotte Perkins
Gilman and Dorothea Dix were significant figures.
• By the dawn of the twentieth century, women has still not
received the right to vote, but female novelists took to
examine the life of women outside of societal conformity.
THE NOVEL AND FEMINISM
• Chopin uses Edna’s inner life as well as the portrait of the many marriages to
inspect the limitations of gender. Virginia Woolf would later characterize this
as a need for “a room of one’s own.” In giving up the physical world of her
marriage, Edna sets about exploring the individual life. Mademoiselle Reisz
also serves as the woman living outside the confines of marriage, outside the
social conventions.
• Leone’s discussion with the doctor—also allows Chopin to examine the
societal conception that Edna’s behavior is a symptom of a disease: “she’s
got some sort of notion in her head concerning the eternal rights of women”
and the doctor’s reply: “Has she been associating of late with a circle of
pseudointellectual women-superspiritual superior beings? My wife has been
telling me about them” and Edna’s remark; “she says that a wedding is one
of the most lamentable spectacles on earth. Nice thing for a woman to say
to her husband” and the doctor’s assessment of women: (XXII, 107-108)
• Later, Edna’s own father, the colonel lends his solution: “You are too lenient,
too lenient by far, Leonce,” asserted the colonel. “Authority, coercion are
what is needed. Put your foot down good and hard; the only way to
manage a wife. Take my word for it.” The colonel was perhaps unaware that
he had coerced his own wife into her grave” (XXIV 116)