The Awakening
...with the young Robert, she and he will be likely to wind up as withdrawn and self-content as the pair of lovers constantly appear to be. It is this question, and this conflict that ultimately leads to Edna’s suicide, for, in the end, she cannot find compromise between these two distinctly different lives. And as she, “went on and on, thinking of the bluegrass meadow that she had traversed when a little child, believing that it had no begining and no end” (190), she finally achieves that sense of freedom and happiness that she sought so long and hard for. The woman in black, upon first glance, may seem a bit like the mirror image of Mademoiselle Reitz, Edna’s eccentric confidant from Grand Isle. For each has withdrawn from society in some way. And while the woman in black prefers to “[keep] her eyes fastened upon the pages of her velvet prayer-book” (60), Reitz is simply a “disagreeable little woman...owing to a temper which was self-assertive and a disposition to trample upon the rights of others” (43). However, after further examination, one finds that this woman in black is, in fact, the opposite of Reitz, for in all of the ways in which Reitz has bucked the system, the woman in black has accepted and conceeded to the demands of society, and is truly much more unhappy and bitter than Reitz is. The woman in black is seldom mentioned apart from her foil: the pair of lovers. Using these two together allows Chopin to place special emphasis on just how alone and ultimately typical the woman in black has become. She serves as a warning for Edna, a forshadowing of what she will become if she continues down her current path. The waman in black is, figuratively, Edna in twenty years, assuming a change is not made. The foil to the somber woman in black is the pair of lovers. One could say that this blissful couple is indeed Robert and Edna, but in reality, their role stretches much farther than jsut to two people. For these two, constantly found “leaning toward each other” (37) and “shoulder to shoulder, creeping” (56), represent what everyone is ultimately seeking, that one other person to truly connect with. Being constantly next to each other, and content with one another, the lovers often appear anti-social. Even during gatherings with the rest of the Grand Isle inhabitants, they “speak in whispers of matters which they rightly considered were interesting to no one but themselves” (71). the lovers have indeed rebelled against the system and have dedicated their summer to each other. They serve to demonstra...