The Awakening

Edna Pontellier's Struggle for Freedom in The Awakening by Kate Chopin

In Kate Chopin's novel The Awakening the constant boundaries and restrictions placed on Edna Pontellier by society will lead to her struggle for freedom and her ultimate suicide. Her husband Leonce Pontellier, the current women of society, and the Grand Isle make it evident that Edna is trapped in a patriarchal society. Despite these people, Edna has a need to be free and she is able to escape from the society that she despises. The sea, Robert Lebrun, and Mademoiselle Reisz serve as Edna's outlets from conformity. "Edna's journey for personal independence involves finding the words to express herself. She commits suicide rather than sacrificing her independent, individual existence as social conventions demand of her" (Ewell 153).

There are constant boundaries and restrictions imposed on Edna Pontellier that initiate Edna's struggle for freedom. Edna is a young Creole wife and mother in a high-class society. The novel unfolds the life of a woman who feels dissatisfied and restrained by the expectations of society. Leonce Pontellier, her husband is declared "...the best husband in the world" (Chopin 6). Edna is forced to admit that she knew of none better. Edna married Leonce because he courted her earnestly and her father was opposed to her marriage to a Catholic. "Edna felt that her marriage would anchor her to the conventional standards of society and end her infatuation" (Skaggs 30). She is fond of Leonce, but he does not incite passionate feelings. Edna represents women in the past that were suppressed. These women weren't allowed to give their opinions and were often seen as objects, which explains the way her husband never really saw Edna as his wife, but more as a material possession. "You are burnt beyond recognition, he added, looking at his wife as one looks at a valuable piece of personal property which has suffered great damage" (Chopin 2). In this society, men viewed their wives as an object, and she receives only the same respect as a possession. Edna did not respect her husband as the other women did. While he talked to her, Edna was overcome with sleep and answered him with little half utterances. "Leonce thought it very discouraging that his wife, who was the sole object of his existence, evinced so little interest in things which concerned him, and valued so little conversation" (Chopin 4). Leonce condemned Edna for neglecting their children. "If it was not a mother's place to look after children, whose on earth was it" (Chopin 4). Edna realizes that the patriarchal society is quick to condemn particularly a freedom-seeking woman who neglects her children since she is "intended by nature" to take care of them (Dyer 126). She is "uneven and impulsive" in her affections for her children. When they leave to visit their grandmother, she is relieved because she is not suited to the responsibilities of motherhood. Edna's mind was at rest concerning the present material needs of her children:

In short, Mrs. Pontellier was not a mother-woman...It was easy to know them, fluttering about with extended, protecting wings when any harm, real or imaginary, threatened their precious brood. They were women who idolized their children, worshiped their husbands, and esteemed it a holy privilege to efface themselves as individuals and grow wings as ministering angels (Chopin 6).

The "mother-woman" role is an image that summarizes this idea of decorum. It is a behavioral code which bases a woman's identity on her capacity to bear children, look after them and worship the patriarch; it is a role based on the effacement and the extrication of each female individuality for the sake of the "mother-woman" raiment.

"Adele Ratignolle is the premium example of the mother-woman. She embodies all the "womanly charms" of romantic heroines. In seven years, she has had three children and is planning on a fourth. Adele, represents the stages of a respectable Victorian woman's life: romantic courtship, marriage, motherhood, and devout widowhood if she survives beyond her husband" (Skaggs 23).

Edna does not worship her husband as the women of society do. She shows this by showing no respect for her wedding ring. The ring symbolizes their marriage and unity, which Edna does not feel they share. "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" (Chopin, 57). "Edna's revolt is clear and precise. Her frustration is emphasized by the fact that her attempts are met with absolute resilience. Chopin makes clear that the marriage institution will fall to frustrated tantrums, but one that can be met and conquered in a mature, psychological fashion" (Dyer 128).

Grand Isle is where the novel is set. While on a spiritual level, the island seems to represent freedom and self-liberation for Edna, but on a literal level, the island can also symbolize the same kind of entrapment that faces Edna. As an island, Grand Isle is surrounded on all sides by water and cut off from the mainland; Edna's true self is surrounded on all sides by societal constraint and is completely cut off from the rest of the world around her- including even herself. For the first time, Edna is a close as she has ever been to a whole person, rather than existing as a mere dot on the mainland of society

Edna struggles for freedom throughout the novel. The sea is where Edna begins her search for freedom. The sea is the novel's central symbol of romantic possibility. Chopin's lavish descriptions of the sea give us an insight into its powerful effect on Edna:

The voice of the sea is seductive; never ceasing, whispering, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander for a spell in abysses of solitude; to lose itself in mazes of inward contemplation. The voice of the sea speaks to the soul. The touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace (Chopin 13).

The sea is a place that promises spiritual as well as physical freedom. The sea urges Edna toward limitlessness, toward transcendence, toward the romantic.

Edna learns to swim-- a moment of complete liberation and discovery of her self, or at least a some facet of identity:

But that night she was like the little tottering, stumbling, clutching child, who all of a sudden realizes its powers, and walks for the first time alone, boldly and with over-confidence. She could have shouted for joy. She did shout for joy, as with a sweeping stroke or two she lifted her body to the surface