The Awakening
Kate Chopin
Penguin Books
1899
Ms. Hen decided to read this because she had just read the story “The
Yellow Wallpaper,” since she was inspired to read that when she read STONER,
and THE AWAKENING is similar to the short story. Ms. Hen had read this
book years ago, but when she started reading it this time, she did not remember
anything about the book except the ending.
This novella is about a woman unsatisfied with her life,
Edna Pontellier. She is married, and has two children. The novella opens at a
resort on the Gulf of Mexico in the summer, where the family is on vacation, and
there are a lot of other people there. Edna becomes friends with some of the
women, and she has a flirtation with Robert; they take a boat ride together,
and she become infatuated with him. She thinks he feels the same way, but
immediately he tells everyone he is going to Mexico to work.
Edna and her family go back to New Orleans, and she can’t
stop thinking about Robert. He does not write to her, but she discovers he writes
to the musician, Mademoiselle Reisz, and he in the letters he mentions Edna. Edna’s husband
goes on a trip to New York, and she does not want to go with him, so she stays home. The
children go to stay in the countryside, and she is alone in the house. She
decides to move out of the house to a smaller one. Robert comes back to New
Orleans, but she does not fulfill her wishes.
When Ms. Hen read this book years ago, she was not the
educated hen she is today. She thinks she read this before she had her
bachelor’s degree. Now she has a Master’s degree, and is able to read in a
deeper way than before. What a difference an education makes! She does not have
a decent job, but who needs a job when there are books to read?
This book reminds Ms. Hen of both MADAME BOVARY and ANNA
KARENINA in the way that is about a woman who falls in love with a man who is
not her husband, and it devastates her, and she ultimately dies. In the two
other novels, the characters have affairs, and are obsessed with the men. In
THE AWAKENING, Edna does not have an affair with her paramour, but she is still
crushed. These books show what little options these women had; they did not
work, and they came from privileged backgrounds, and had a lot of time to muse
on their problems. They were all uninterested mothers; some women are not meant
to be mothers, because they don’t have the inclination.
The difference between MADAME BOVARY, ANNA KARENINA, and THE
AWAKENING, is that THE AWAKENING is American, and is written by a woman. When
THE AWAKENING was published, Kate Chopin was ostracized because people in the
time and place thought how dare a woman write about a woman being unhappy in her
life? It’s acceptable for men to write such things in Europe, but the horror of
an American woman writer proposing that a woman does not like being a mother,
and wants passionate love outside her marriage! We hope we live in different
days now.
Ms. Hen had a different experience reading this novella as a
more educated reader. She thinks it’s important to see things through awakened eyes
as we grow older. Some people don’t like getting older, but Ms. Hen thinks that
older people know more, and are able to handle problems with grace and style.
She does not wish to be young again, which might surprise some, but Ms. Hen
believes that everyone has a different path. She recommends this book to anyone
who wants to read about a woman trying to find happiness and failing in the messed up world.
No comments:
Post a Comment