Chopin's Edna in The Awakening: Integrity in Depicting Sexuality and the Inner Life of Women - Essay Example

Chopins Edna in ‘The Awakening Integrity in Depicting Sexuality and the Inner Life of Women In Kate Chopin’s ‘The Awakening’, the main character Edna is a married woman and a mother of two children, who goes out on a brave journey of self-discovery. It is brave, because of the weight of tradition, that kept women in her time and place from seeking an identity outside of family, motherhood, and her place as the property of her husband. Such were the social norms of the time, and her friend Adele was the embodiment of the ideal woman. Edna rebelled against that with nothing to prop her up. On vacation with her family in Grand Isle, she gives in to her feeling for a man that she met there, in Robert. This is the first break with tradition and the conventions of her time. From here we get a glimpse of the struggle that is to follow for Edna. She had bravely given in to her feelings and impulses rather than conform to the social norms of her time. Her friend Adele was there to remind her of that. Her friend was also there as a backdrop to her break with social moral standards. She was her own woman. This paper explores this aspect of Edna’s life and her pursuit of her own self-identity. This pursuit has its own inner integrity, in that the novel depicts it with a kind of clinical detachment. The inner life of Edna is depicted as truthfully as possible. This paper follows this and posits the thesis that one of the novel’s key merits is this honest and stark depiction of the inner life of women through the character of Edna, as befits the integrity of Chopin as an artist whose main concern is truth and beauty over social conventions and what society deems as proper and moral (Chopin; The Kate Chopin International Society; The Kate Chopin International Society (b)). In the Kate Chopin International Society website there is a page dedicated to summarizing the different ways in which people have analyzed and reviewed ‘The Awakening’ by Chopin. Scholarly work that have investigated various aspects of the novel span more than half a century in modern times. The common themes of the analyses revolve around the way the novel develops themes tied to the search for self-hood and self-identity by women; the conscious rejection of the norms of society; and the exploration of the sexuality of women, against the contrasting reality of their roles as mothers. among many other takes on the novel. What is not always discussed, on the other hand, is the way the novel is a work of art, by an artist whose commitment is to the truth of things. In Chopin, the observation is that in essence the writer was concerned with just the truth. She did not necessarily want to go against the conventions of society. It was just that when she explored the humanity of Edna, and her being a woman, she was following that exploration wherever it would lead. In the case of the Edna, exploring her own identity meant having sex with men, and following through on her passions and her feelings. What would happen to a woman who did what Edna did? As an exploration Chopin arguably was not concerned with whether the answers were safe or not. There were no fixed answers, and maybe the truth will be ugly. This is the basic position of the novel as truth seeking. In truth Edna acted out her part, staying true to her feelings and her thoughts. She fell in love with Robert and she followed that feeling. Another writer would have written something that was morally acceptable to the people of her time. On the other hand with Chopin the impression one gets is that there is no concern for audience, only for being a novelist of integrity. She would report whatever happened, no matter how ugly or depraved, or how inconvenient the truth is. The fact is that Edna’s truth was inconvenient. She risked being shunned by society because of the way she acted, being an adulterous woman and one who was openly sexual. By proxy Chopin was likewise putting herself at risk of being shunned by her contemporaries. Yet to play it safe would mean abandoning her commitment to the truth. She chose truth over convenience and public acceptance. To be more precise, she chose to follow wherever the truth may lead her with regard to Edna and her emotions and thoughts. This choice was over the alternative, which was to think and feel as others expected her to, like Adele who was totally conforming to the conventions of her community (Chopin; The Kate Chopin International Society; The Kate Chopin International Society (b)). On the other hand, in contrast to Adele, in Edna Chopin seemed eager to project her own exploration and acceptance of whatever is in Edna’s store of humanity so to speak. In a world where a woman was free to follow her natural inclinations, what will happen? In a world where a woman is not free to follow her sexual impulses and her natural desires, as is the case in the novel, what will happen? These seem to be the ruling questions that Chopin wanted to explore in the novel. Like a social scientist, and as an artist, she just let Edna be herself. Moreover, she has no qualms writing explicitly about Edna’s sexual trysts. Like someone faithfully taking a snapshot of life and not wishing to alter it in any way, Chopin wrote about the shifting emotions and desires of Edna, and follows her even into the midst of the sex act. One instance is in Chapter 27, where Chopin writes about Edna having sex with Alcee Arobin. The annotation to this chapter notes that the language was clear, even as Chopin is not able to be more explicit. This has more to do with the conventions of the time, and that it may have been impossible to publish the work if the sex language was more explicit. On the other hand, the last line of the chapter connotes sexual union. “It was a flaming torch that kindled desire” (Chopin 218). Again in Chapter 31 we are made to understand that the two have sex again. This is narrated in explicit language that made it clear that the man had successfully seduced Edna into having sex with him that night that they were alone in the pigeon house (Chopin 242). The point here is that apart from the restriction in language there was no attempt to make the whole affair different from what it is. In Chopin the feelings and actions of Edna are allowed to show, regardless of whether or not her thoughts and feelings are acceptable to traditional society. There is a conscious effort therefore to show things as they are. This is a kind of integrity again that shines through in the work. This reflects Chopin’s being faithful to the truth of Edna’s being a woman who is true to herself. This is the vision, that Edna is allowed to explore her sexuality and her being a woman within the space of the novel. There is no attempt to be pretty, or acceptable, or moral, but rather the attempt is to be authentic and true to oneself and to the reality of the life as it is lived by Edna (Chopin; The Kate Chopin International Society). The work as a work of art and as a work that is devoted to truth and beauty is the main argument of this paper. The aim of the work is to explore the life of a woman who shuns the roles of mother and husband, and not to moralize or to be acceptable. This work is about Chopin following the truth wherever the truth of Edna’s self-identity may lead. The preceding discussion develops this. In the academic literature too there are similar treatments and views on the novel. Extending the discussion, there is a position that sees Edna too as an artist, in the same mold as Chopin. She is not an artist in the sense of Chopin creating a novel and seeking beauty. Edna is an artist too in the sense that she wants to be true to herself and to make an art out of her own life. By this is meant pursuing the truth of her own self, as a woman who is sexual, who has feelings, who is also a person. This goes against the roles that society expects of her. Society wants her to remain a woman and husband, and to not have a life outside that. On the other hand Edna’s artistic impulse is to run away and to be true to herself. In this way the open sexuality, and the suicide, seem to find their place. Her sexuality and her death by suicide are her own, and not something imposed on her from outside. These are the ways in which she follows her individuality through to the end. This is in the same spirit as Chopin writing about Edna with a devotion to the truth of things, rather than to anything external and imposed from the outside. There is therefore a parallel reality here with regard to the life of Edna as a representation of the life of an artist and the artistic intention of Chopin. In both the commitment is to the truth. Edna wanted to live a life that was true to her own sense of being an independent woman with feelings and thoughts. In the same vein, in Chopin it is clear that she intends to write about Edna in those terms too, rather than to make it other than what it really is. In other words, in both instances the integrity of the artist who wants to live in truth is apparent. Edna’s integrity as an artist is a reflection of the integrity of Chopin as an artist. It just so happens that that integrity meant breaking taboos about women having sex outside of marriage, and of writers openly exploring things like that in their novels (Chopin; The Kate Chopin International Society; Stone 23-32). To conclude, the preceding discussion explored the novel as an exercise in artistic integrity for Chopin. That integrity meant being true to the real state of things from a woman’s point of view. It is about Edna and all women being flesh and blood persons with their own sexual drives, feelings, thoughts, and inclinations apart from what society expects of them. Those outward constraints mean nothing from this point of view (Chopin; Stone; The Kate Chopin International Society). Works Cited Chopin, Kate. The Awakening. 22 April 1899. Web. 3 December 2014. Stone, Carole. “The Female Artist in Kate Chopins The Awakening: Birth and Creativity”. Women’s Studies 13. 1986. Web. 3 December 2014. The Kate Chopin International Society. “Kate Chopin: The Awakening”. KateChopin.org. 2014. Web. 3 December 2014. The Kate Chopin International Society (b). “Kate Chopin’s Themes”. KateChopin.org. 2014. Web. 3 December 2014. Read More