The Social and Historical Forces - Ednas Journey toward Self-Realization - Essay Example

Name Professor Course Date The Social and Historical Forces that Both Shape and Impede Edna’s Journey toward Self-realization In order to honor one’s deepest truth, one must first discover what the truth is and then apply that truth to everyday life (Nelson 30). The life of Edna Pontellier in The Awakening signifies the search, discovery and application of an individual’s deepest truth. Edna, a wealthy New Orleans housewife, attempts to find the deepest truth about her by conforming to society’s norms. She marries a well-respected man, Leonce, and bears his children. However, Edna discovers that she wants more out of life since something about her marriage is not allowing her to achieve fulfillment. Through her relationships, confrontations, and conflicts with other characters, Edna discovers that her deepest truth is her need for independence from those who hold her back, and she honors her deepest truth by exerting the power of her individuality.  The following essay will chart Edna’s journey into her awakening, answering questions about whether or not Edna’s journey is one of a woman on a timeless quest to self-definition, whether it was an expression of Chopin’s feminism or if it was, in fact, an expression of ultimate selfishness by a woman who is too weak to shoulder responsibilities bestowed on her. The thesis put forward by this paper is that Edna, while on the search for self-actualization, committed the ultimate act of selfishness by committing suicide. Chopin portrays Edna as an attractive and rather idle young woman of twenty eight. Her life is that of a married woman who is tied to an older man named LeoncePontellier. As the novel unfolds, one sees that a big portion of her life is made up of the pursuit of feminine pastimes such as painting and drawing, while the rest of it is spent in turmoil questioning her very existence wherein she is supposed to be a slave to her husband and her surroundings. She is a resident of and belongs to the very elite and upward middle class, Creole elite of New Orleans. She is the middle daughter of an old Kentucky horse-trader. Her mother died when she was quite young. Although she is not beautiful in the stereotypical and conventional sense of the term, Edna is characterized by a presence that is commanding. At the beginning of the novel, Edna arrives at the conclusion that her life is not really her own but has to be lived in ways that others deem fit. In this dilemma that surrounds her life, she begins to question regulations and ideas that she feels they have been imposed on her. Tall and striking, Edna is the typical trophy wife, and what makes her interesting is the fact that she is a rebel. If one were to describe a reason explaining the significance of this journey, he/she would arrive at the fact that hers is the search of a woman in a time that was characterized by women whose greatest goal in life would be landing a good husband and making an excellent homemaker. The story is a precursor to the women’s movement that views it is normal, acceptable, and even desirable that a woman has the right to define her own destiny. In such a quest, she feels that destiny does not always need to include a husband and a home. The search, according to critiques, is in drastic contrast to the expected role of a nineteenth century woman in Louisiana, and this fact eventually causes the entrapment leading to Edna’s suicide. Edna cannot have the things she wants (independence and freedom) and does not want the things that have been bestowed upon her, with sort of respectability like children and a good home. This all sets an undertone that Louisiana is predictably neither receptive nor welcoming to the concept of an independent woman.  The reader gets a first indication of the fact that Edna is not cut out to be the perfect Creole housewife because of her conflict with her husband. Incidentally in the novel, Leonce describes Edna as being “a valuable piece of personal property” (Chopin 7),while Edna rebels against this property of her being. “Her family was a part of her life. However, to her the problem happened with their attitude of thinking that they could have her in body and in soul, which left no part of her for just her” (Chopin 116). While Edna did try and perform her wifely duty in the typical manner for a while, she could, by no means, be described as the typical housewife.She does not worship her husband or idolize their children, which makes both Edna and Leonce begin to sense that Edna is different from other mothers and women. Edna never realized the reasons she neglected her duties as a wife until she falls in love with Robert and acknowledged the fact that she had needs and desires outside her marriage.   Chopin, by demonstrating Edna’s awakening, attempts to wake her own society up to the beauty of an independent woman. It, thus, transpires that after her experience with Robert, Edna is ready to neglect her husband even more because she now realizes that her husband is holding her back from her needs. That feeling erupts more like a volcano when Leonce tries to male Edna act like the other women who obey their husbands. Furthermore, his attempts to control Edna further instigate Edna's desire for independence from him. An example for that is the scene when Edna is lying in the hammock, Leonce says to her, “I can’t permit you to stay out there all night; you must come in the house instantly”. Edna replies, “I mean to stay out here. I don’t wish to go in, and I don’t intent to. Don’t speak to me like that again; I shall not answer you”(Chopin 492). The thing that characterizes Edna’s character remains her overarching need to be free and spirited; she refuses to conform to her husband because she does not want to lose herself. Becoming the perfect obedient wife would mean losing her individuality, which Edna realizes would not give her any fulfillment and would make her a puppet. Edna, as opposed to most of other women of her time, does not want to play a mindless role that offers her little room for growth. Instead, she must act independently of her husband and discover more about herself outside of her marriage. Edna further realizes her lack of desire to become the perfect Creole woman when she witnesses the actions of her friend, Adele. According to Quinn, Adele is portrayed as the model 19th century woman of Louisiana who is very much devoted to her children and husband. For example, Chopin describes Adele as woman that “would not consent to remain with Edna if Monsieur Ratignolle was alone, and he detested above all things to be left alone” (479). Quinn describes Adele saying that she was “merely one half of the Ratignolle couple; she was not an individual person” (Quinn 31). Adele has, therefore, conducted the proper thing expected out of her by being with her husband and becoming one with him. The narrator of the novel incidentally describes the Ratignolle couple as one that “understood each other perfectly (Chopin 144). The Ratignolle couple was characterized by absolute compatibility to the extent that it was said that theirs was a perfect fusion of two people (Ryan 2). Edna, on the other hand, was characterized by a sporadic and unpredictable love where her family was concerned. While she would miss her children and feel the urge to display emotions and love for them in spurts, she was also characterized by the need to completely shun them at times, and would view them as an impediment rather than extensions of herself. Their absence would tend to be a relief despite the fact that Edna would not accept the fact (Chopin 40).  Quinn further claims that Edna, after witnessing such an ideal marriage, came to know in an instant that she would not fit into the expected role of awife. Quinn’s claim is supported by the quote:“Edna felt depressed rather than soothed after leaving them. The little glimpse of domestic harmony which had been offered her, gave her no regret, no longing. It was a condition of life which fitted her, and she could see in it but an appalling and hopeless ennui” (Chopin 511). Edna is left disgusted by marriage and the roles that women are forced to play. This particular manifestation confirms itself in Edna’s mind after her relationship with Robert, following which she realizes that there is so much more to life beyond marriage.“Edna was aware of the fact that any opinion that Adele would have would be reflective of the opinions of society and the opinions that her husband would approve of. These opinions would be such that it would be clear that they were no decided upon by her on her own, and as such would be truly without any value. Despite this, given the fact that Adele was her only friend, Edna kept seeking words of encouragement and praise that would put her heart into the venture” (Chopin 511). Adele, on the other hand, is a typical Creole woman, but her role limits her from expressing what she really feels and makes her say the things that she thinks the other person would want to hear. Perhaps from playing this role for so long, Adele no longer knows how to express her true emotions. Edna cannot be like Adele because Edna wants to be true to her emotions and not pay a mindless role that will cause her to lose all truth about herself. Edna encounters a friendship with Adele, and this helps Edna to further realize that she cannot be happy living in a world that offers little room for growth and truth. In this context, it is interesting that Edna’s confrontations with Adele and Leonce are not the only confrontations that direct Edna to the conclusion that she does not belong to a position that entitles her role to be that of a perfectly obedient mother and wife. Edna’s encounters with her own children also tend to awaken her to the fact that she is not the ideal Creole parent. For example, in The Awakening, Edna’s view of her children was described as “The children appeared before [Edna] like antagonists who had overcome her; who had overpowered her to sought to drag her into the slavery for the rest of her days” (Chopin 528). Where the suicide attempted by Edna is concerned, as an attempt to make sense of the event, one would have to understand the fact that this suicide has been interpreted as her ultimate act of independence, and by deduction, the ultimate act of her awakening. This is because it was the result of her understanding that she could no longer live in the shadow and as the property of her husband. What one sees in her character is the choice to be in restrictions for her entire being. While, on the one hand, there is the clear misplaced independence of Edna as explained by Quinn, there is also the explanatory stance taken by Hart who explains that, for Edna, her loss of individuality is being symbolized by her children. Edna is defined by her role as a wife and a mother, and no longer has an identity. However, Edna does not want to be a mother and a woman like Adele. As demonstrated by the fact that Edna is consistent when she deals with her children, Edna was “fond of her children in an uneven impulsive way. She would sometimes gather them passionately to her heart; she would sometimes forget them” (481). Edna in this sense is not like the other Louisiana women whomThe Awakening describes as being people “who idolized their children worshipped their husbands and esteemed it a holy privilege to efface themselves as individuals and grow wings as ministering angels” ( Chopin 473). This brings one to the question of Edna’s suicide. One could attribute the suicide to her struggle for finding herself as an individual in her quest for selfhood; given the fact that there was little to no chances of a woman being able to find self-determination in a society that was characterized by monetary and social norms based on prohibition of female freedom (Martin 17).  The idea, therefore, was that the movement found no sympathizers in the South; however, the movement’s basic premise was based on taking the woman out of the home and placing her in the domain that had been traditionally reserved for the man. Women were supposed to be delicate creatures prone to bouts of swooning at the slightest provocation. Therefore, they needed protection and assurance that the presence of a man in their lives would afford them. A Southern woman was supposed to love the retirement of her home and would shrink from everything that would bring her into the public gaze (Tillet 16). In this context, it would be interesting for one to take a look at some of theories of gender on the public and private space, defining the role of the woman. Gender, according to social theorists, is in essence a result of social ideologies. The idea, therefore, is that there is a difference between a man and a woman which could be explained in terms of being primarily biological. An imposition of these biological differences on the social and economic plane has been construed in the society around the world. The concept of gender and the inequality that is precipitated through the concept in society is the theme of feminism and feminist theory. The reasons and the implications of gender discrimination in most societies and cultures around the world are due to the fact that women are seen as homemakers. In most cases, the women are regarded as being responsible for the personal space and the men as being charge of the public space. One of the primary reasons for this could be explained in terms of the fact that women have traditionally kept away from the political space and politics has in turn kept women out of the ambit of political power and legislation making and influencing authority. Even when women are actively involved with politics, they are responsible for the softer aspects of the administration like tourism, information, and health. In 1848, there was a women’s rights convention held in Seneca Falls, New York. This was held to examine women’s rights across the world. Women were not looked upon as being equals, but more as subordinate. Back to those days, women would have no say over financial discussions and were not allowed to speak out against their husbands; “he has compelled her to submit to laws, in the formation of which she had no voice” (Newman 379). It was an unwritten rule that men knew what was best for the family.  The best examples of the stereotyping of characters in literature are found in the classics where the predominant themes and the character sketches are reflections of stereotypes of masculine and feminine roles. This kind of gender stereotyping can be marked not just in mainstream books but also in medal winners. Some believe that most books in the genre have a portrayal of the feminine attributes as being acted upon rather than active (Fox 52). The female is supposed to be sweet, naive, conforming, and dependent. The description and characterization of boys is a different story all together. They are typically etched out to be physically powerful, daring and bold, independent, self-sufficient, and capable (Ernst 67). Boys mostly are assigned the roles of fighters, adventurers, and swash-buckling rescuers, while girls are given the less adventurous passive roles of the caretaker, the mothers, and the princesses who need to be rescuedfrom either the villain or the tower. The role assigned to women is that of the support characters, the ones in need of rescue, the passive listeners, the ones waiting for the man’s decision, and the passive caretakers (Temple 91). Often, the women in novels tend to aid the achievements of masculine goals, while they themselves would end up being stranded forever without any goal at all. It is left to the boys to be demonstrative of resourcefulness and/or resolve. Even in cases where the women are portrayed as being forceful or taking the lead at the beginning of the novel, they would ultimately be relegated to a position where they would be taking the role of the second or support role. The female characters tending to retain their vigorous qualities are obviously the exception (Rudman 225). Studies would, therefore, be indicatingthat the fact that women are portrayed as heroes or masters of their own destinies never happens. This also signifies that the stereotype of both genders is frequent. Edna, while being an epitome of misplaced feminism, is also presented as a woman with a Flaubertian mockery. She has been portrayed as someone who tends to be prone to romantic fantasies about men that are ungettable. Before she reaches puberty, she becomes passionately enamored with a dignified and sad-eyed cavalry officer who visits her father. She cannot remove her eyes from his faceThe cavalry officer imperceptibly melts out of her existence; however, in her early teens, her affections are again deeply engaged by the fiancé of a lady on a neighboring plantation. The realization that she is “nothing nothing nothing” to the engaged man is a bitter affliction forEdna. Evidently, her passions were not as deep as she had imagined them to be. As a grown woman, she is a character dominated by the things that she thinks would be the climax of her fate, as the face and figure of a great tragedian begin to haunt her mind. The persistence of the infatuation lent it an aspect of genuineness. The hopelessness of it colored it with the lofty tones of a great passion. Courted by Leonce while she is in the midst of her great secret passion, Edna decides to accept him when she realizes that the acme of bliss which would have been a marriage with the tragedian is not for her in this world. It is not long before that the tragedian goes the way of the cavalry officer and the engaged young man, along with a few others. When she does marry, Edna feels that she has foreverclosed the portals behind her upon the realm of romance and dreams and has entered the world of reality. She takes satisfaction in the fact that no trace of passion or excessive and fictitious warmth characterizes this new world of hers. It is here that the passion that Edna begins to feel for Robert is to be understood as the initiation of her awakening. The author presents Edna’s attraction to Robert Lebrun not only as a sexual awakening but also as a return to the realm of romance and dreams, which was not forever closed to her after all. When Robert decides to leave to Mexico, Edna, in her despondency, recognizes the symptoms of infatuation she had experienced several times before, but she cannot view herself with critical detachment. Chopin characterizes the present as being totally unimportant, to her it was still relevant given the fact that it was symbolic of a loss of all that she had previously held as hers (Massie2). An important stand of the rhetoric presents Edna as failing to achieve her goals because of the fact that she lacks sufficient courage, she has a good deal of courage, and acts out her desires rather than trying to gratify them safely through a male. While she leaves no excuse for being absent on her stay-at-home day, Leonce says, “people don’t do such things”. Chopin does suggest, that although Mademoiselle Reisz was bold enough Edna does not gave in to the courageous soul and did not defy or dare.. Mademoiselle Reisz tells Edna that “the bird would soar above the level plain of tradition and prejudice must have strong wings” and that it is “a sad spectacle to see the weaklings bruised, exhausted, fluttering back to earth” (Chopin 79). The imagery of the bird, incidentally, is an important aspect of the novel. When Mademoiselle Reisz plays the piece at Grand Isle, Edna entitles solitude, envisioning the “the figure of a man standing beside a desolate rock on the seashore. He was naked. His attitude was one of hopeless resignation as he looked toward a distant bird winging its flight away from him” (Chopin 44). This seems to express Edna’s hopelessness at that point about her ability to soar above the level plain. The nakedness of the figure and the fact that it is a man may express her desire for freedom from inhibition and her flight from womanhood. At the end, of course, Edna stands naked on the seashore, hopeless about her own ability to soar. A bird with a broken wing is beating the air above, reeling, fluttering, circling disabled down, down to the water. As this is the sad spectacle of which Mademoiselle Reisz had earlier spoken. In her final thoughts, Edna imagines Mademoiselle Reisz laughing, perhaps even sneering at her: “and you call yourself an artist! What pretensions Madame! The artist must possess the courageous soul that dares and defies” (Chopin 302). One of the less spoken about or debated moments in the novel, The Awakening, happens when Chopin portrays the arrival of Edna’s father and brings to light the disconnect between the father and the daughter. Edna sits and sketches her father. The scene is, thus, described. “He resented the intrusion of the children, who gaped with wondering eyes at him, sitting so stiff up there in their mother's bright atelier. When they drew near he motioned them away with an expressive action of the foot, loath to disturb the fixed lines of his countenance, his arms, or his rigid shoulders” (Chopin 110). The image is in the general agreement with the manner in which Chopin has portrayed Edna’s father. He is not only a remarkable man but also vain, selfish, and cold. In the initial days Edna tends to have fun in the newly found adult feeling as Chopin suggests in the following words, "for the first time in her life she felt as if she were thoroughly acquainted" with her father and is only "amused" that "he kept her busy serving him and ministering to his wants" (Chopin 66). However, over a period of time, the father daughter relationship fell into the cycle of regular arguments over Edna’s “lack of filial kindness and respect”. Her father accuses her of the fact that she is happy to have gone, “with his padded shoulders, his Bible reading, his 'toddies' and ponderous oaths” (Chopin 68). Critics have said over time that Edna's father could become a case study of a man who was narcissistic. The image of him shooing his grandsons while trying to maintain his perfect pose is a telling clue to Edna's childhood and the factors that ultimately determined the formation of her overall personality. Critics such as Fox have portrayed Edna as a woman with a schizoid personality disorder, while others gave little to no attention to the formation of Edna’s character. Since there is a tendency among most to Miss Chopin's insight into Edna's psychological state, debates on her character have focused on feminism, existentialism, and Darwinism integrated within the fold of the novel. Regrettably, this has signified that in the long run there has been a typically ignoring of the very tangible possibility that the event of Edna's suicide was a result of depression. She was a woman that was troubled by the affection deficiency characterizing her early years (Ryan58). Due to the fact that Kate Chopin was fascinated by Darwinism, she does consciously present Edna's sexual initiation as a product of a natural evolution. She does also have an interest in the manner of the feminism characterizing the Civil War. This finds evidence in the manner in which she has portrayed the characters of Mademoiselle Reitz and in Edna's struggle to define themselves outside the social codes of marriage and motherhood. The novel's anticipated existentialism is also obvious in the manner in which the protagonist perceives herself, much like Camus's Janine in "The Adulterous Woman," as someone who is cut off from everyone else. She also realizes that she is at liberty to take her own decisions event though she is lonely. The nature of paradoxes that characterize the novel could be better understood if only one were to take into account the fact that the author has doctored a person whose desires were not met since her very childhood, and it was this very denial of her needs that characterized the absence of comfort with intimacy that characterized Edna’s life. Depravity in her childhood left her hollow with a lifelong struggle to gain a human affection which would not overpower her emerging sense of a genuine self. It has been, in fact, argued that one does not need to and cannot easily explain Edna’s emotional neediness (Rudman 272). The memories of her childhood and the rejection by her father defined by her incessant need to please him are sharply juxtaposed against her need to win Robert’s affections despite her being aware of the fact that he would never understand neither accept (Fox 109). Thus, it can be stated that her current requirements and insecurities may be the result of her childhood experiences. In conclusion, therefore, it could be reiterated that while Chopin’s protagonist, Edna, is a model of self-actualization, there is a portrayal of selfishness that characterizes her being, which in turn could explain her suicide. Further, literary critics have often found similarities between the unfolding events in Chopin’s ‘The Awakening’ and Gustave Flaubert’s ‘Madame Bovary’ (Knights xlii).  Like Emma Bovary, Edna craves a kind of passion that she does not find in marriage, so this explains her need to have an extra-marital affair. However, that ultimately ends up committing suicide. The way that Edna has been portrayed by Chopin, she is not seen as a romantic heroine but a symbol of a woman’s awakening (Cather 6).The awakening is one that Edna goes through in phases, and the pinnacle is achieved when she takes her own life as a manner of manifesting control over her existence. References: Cather, W. Kate Chopin. Pittsburg Leader, 1899. Chopin, K. The awakening. Chicago and New York : H. S. Stone & Company, 1899. Ernst, S. B. “Gender issues in books for children and young adults.” Battling dragons: Issues and controversy in children's literature. Ed. S. Lehr. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1995. 66-78. Fox, C. At the very Edge of the Forest: The influence of literature on the storytelling of children. London, UK: Cassell, 1993. Hart, K. The Pontellier Children. University of North Carolina. 1998. Web. November 18, 2010. , 32. Knights, P. Ed. The awakening and other stories. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. Martin, W. (ed.). New Essays on The Awakening. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (1994): 1- 32. Massie, V. Z. Solitary blessings: Solitude in the fiction of Hawthorne, Melville, and Kate Chopin. A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of English, 2005. Nelson, K. “Criticism from the Heart.” iUniverse (2005): 30-34. Newman, D. M. Sociology: Exploring the Architecture of Everyday Life. US: Pine Forge Press, 2008. Quinn, S. Madame Ratignolle. University of North Caroline. 1998. Web November 18, 2010. . 31-32. Rudman, M. Children's Literature: An issues approach. (3rd edition).White Plains, NY: Longman, 1995. Ryan, S. T. “Depression and Chopin's 'The Awakening'.” The Mississippi Quarterly Spring (1998): 1-16. Temple, C. “What if 'Beauty' had been ugly? Reading against the grain of gender bias in children's books.” Language Arts 70. 2 (1993): 89-93. Tillet, W. F. “Southern Womanhood as Affected by the Civil War.” The Century Magazine 43 (November 1891):16. Read More