Awakening
In Kate Chopin’s novel, The Awakening, the drastic change in character and morals that Edna Pontellier goes through is dramatized by the contrast and connections made between her and her best friend Adele Ratignolle. ... The communities which Chopin wrote about were ones in which respectable women took wine with dinner and brandy after it, smoked cigarettes, played “Chopin” sonatas and told risqué stories (148) It is this heavy emphasis on place that has won acclaim for her novels, especially The Awakening, in which she creates an ever-present southern atmosphere. Other than her use of local color, critics praise her objective treatment of sexuality and feminine psychology in The Awakening (141). In a time where the family unit was often seen as the be all and end all of a woman’s existence, The Awakening took bold steps to partially reject the family as the automatic equivalent of feminine self-fulfillment. ... This sets the stage for Edna’s sexual and spiritual awakening in the novel. ... The first stage of Edna’s awakening is her abandoned status as a devoted wife and mother. ... ” (The Awakening 57) The entire absence of prudery, frankness of conversation, chaste women and jealousy free husbands create a type of entrapment for Edna. ... ” (The Awakening 51) In the novel, Chopin regards freedom from children as a definition of total freedom; Whenever Edna feels as though she has reached a peak of liberation, the image of her children always come to ground her. ... Important connections between Edna’s awakening and Adele’s pregnancy are also made during the delivery. ... This idea suggests somewhat of an anti-awakening, as the foreboding sense responsibility takes over Edna while she watches the childbirth. ... ” (The Awakening 52) Other large differences between Edna and Adele appear in their views on marriage, sex and motherhood. ... Despite the inherent differences between Adele and Edna there are glaring connections that cannot be overlooked; primarily the fact Adele that unknowingly spurs Edna’s awakening. ... 14 - 74) The theme of childbirth and pregnancy is also salient in the novel, in that Adele and Edna are connected by interrelating tensions between Edna’s slow awakening and the gestation cycle of Adele. Edna’s awakening begins when she feels a feeling so vague that she does not even realize it as more that a passing feeling of anguish.