Importance of the Houses in The Awakening
In Kate Chopin's novel The Awakening, Edna's two different houses symbolize her life greatly. Her first house, the mansion of which she shared with her husband, symbolized her life before she started to awaken and realize the kind of life she was in. Her second house, the pigeon house of which she lived in alone, shows her life after she starts to awaken and realize what is going on with her life and that she was not happy before. These two houses show very strong meaning of a before and after of her awakening.
As the novel starts out Edna is a housewife to her husband, Mr. Pontellier, and is not necessarily unhappy or depressed but knows something is missing. Her husband does not treat her well. "...looking at his wife as one looks at a valuable piece of personal property which has suffered some damage." She is nothing but a piece of property to him; he has no true feelings for her and wants her for the sole purpose of withholding his reputation. "He reproached his wife with her inattention, her habitual neglect of the children. If it was not a mother's place to look after children, whose on earth was it?" Mr. Pontellier constantly brings her down for his own satisfaction not caring at all how if affects Edna.
Unfortunately Edna has no clue that she is being treated so poorly in the beginning of this story. With Mr. Pontellier being absent from home so often she finds plenty of time to spend with Robert. Through the whole summer she does not realize the feelings she is developing for Robert and only sees him as a friend. She enjoys spending all of her free time with him and gets along with him much better than her husband. It is not until she is back home and Robert leaves for Mexico that she starts to "awaken" and realize her true feelings not just for Robert but also for life in general.
At first Edna only misses Robert greatly and wonders why he never writes her like he promised he would. She does get to read letters in which Robert has sent others instead of her. She is pleased that he asks about her in his letters but still frustrated that he would not take the time to write her. In one of the letters she reads it states that he will be returning from Mexico soon and Edna is very happy.
Throughout this time Robert has been away Edna has been keeping pretty busy. She realized that her marriage with her husband was a mistake. "Her marriage to Leonce Pontellier was purely an accident, in this respect resembling many other marriages which masquerade as the decrees of Fate. It was in the midst of her secret great passion that she met him. He fell in love, as men are in the habit of doing, and pressed his suit with an earnestness and ardor which left nothing to be desired." Upon realizing this she moved out of their mansion and into a smaller pigeon house. Her husband said he would not move in with her and covers up her moving out. Him not wanting to move with her does not affect her in any way except that of making her feel more independent.
"For the first time, she recognized the symptoms of infatuation which she had felt incipiently as a child, as a girl in her early teens, and later as a young woman. The recognition did not lesson the reality, the poignancy of the revelation by any suggestion or promise of instability. The past was nothing to her; offered no lesson which she was willing to heed. The future was a mystery which she never attempted to penetrate. The present alone was significant; was hers, to torture her as it was doing then with the biting conviction that she had lost that which she had held, she had been denied that which her impassioned, newly awakened being demanded." This is the point where she finally is realized everything. She is opening her eyes on everything that has been happening and eventually opening up her heart to her true feelings.
She is able to do all this due to the fact that she got out of her old house, which was full of memories of her past life where she was practically a servant for her husband and was not living the life she wanted. "She was seeking herself and finding herself in just such sweet, half-darkness which met her moods. But the voices were not soothing that came to her from the darkness and the sky above and the stars. They jeered and sounded mournful notes without promise, devoid even of hope." She starts to realize that getting out of her old house and away from her husband didn't solve all of her problems.
Her first house, the mansion of which she shared with her husband, symbolized her life before she started to awaken and realize the kind of life she was in. Her second house, the pigeon house of which she lived in alone, shows her life after she starts to awaken and realize what is going on with her life and that she was not happy before. These two houses show very strong meaning of a before and after of her awakening.
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