The Awakening by Kate Chopin ends with the death of the main character, Edna Pontellier. Stripping off her clothes, she swims out to sea until her arms can no longer support her, and she drowns. It was not necessarily a suicide, neither was it necessarily the best option for escaping her problems.
We are told that she walks down to the beach “rather mechanically,” (Chopin 108) and that she doesn’t think about much, other than the heat of the sun. This doesn’t seem terribly interesting until we read that the reason she isn’t thinking is because she had, “done all the thinking which was necessary after Robert went away, when she lay awake upon the sofa till morning.” (Chopin 108) This means that she has already planned exactly what she will do on this trip to the beach; indeed, she has been thinking about it all night. This is especially significant with Edna, who normally does not think in advance about the things she will do or say. It is safe to conclude that this was a highly premeditated trip to the beach, regardless of whether or not she committed suicide.
Her mood is vitally important in evaluating her death. We are told that during her thoughtful night, she came to realize that there was, “no one thing in the world that she desired,” (p 108) and that eventually she would be alone. She then remembers her children, but not fondly. They are “antagonists who overcome her; who had overpowered and sought to drag her into the soul’s slavery for the rest of her days.” (Chopin 108) Her children are a burden, not a joy, for they anchor her to “soul’s slavery.” “But she knew of a way to elude them.” (Chopin 108) She knew of a way to elude her children? Certainly there are other possibilities than suicide, but coupled with the oth...
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... definitely solved her problems. It wasn’t her only option, but for her in the state she was in, it was probably the best option. Nothing else she could have done could have helped her.
Works Cited
Arnavon, Cyrille. "An American Madam Bovary." Chopin, Kate. The Awakening. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1994. 184-188.
Chopin, Kate. The Awakening. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1994.
Pollard, Percival. "The Unlikely Awakening of a Married Woman." Chopin, Kate. The Awakening. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1994. 179-181.
Wyatt, Neal. Suicide in "The Awakening". 1995. April 2008 .
Young, Lady Janet Scammon and Dr. Dunrobin Thomson. "Letters from "Lady Janet Scammon Young" and "Dr. Dunrobin Thomson"." Chopin, Kate. The Awakening. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1994. 173-178.
In Kate Chopin's, The Awakening, Edna Pontellier came in contact with many different people during a summer at Grand Isle. Some had little influence on her life while others had everything to do with the way she lived the rest of her life. The influences and actions of Robert Lebrun on Edna led to her realization that she could never get what she wanted, which in turn caused her to take her own life.
Chopin, Kate. "The Awakening." The Norton Anthology of American Literature.. Gen. ed. Nina Baym. 8th ed. Vol. C. New York: Norton, 2012. 561-652. Print.
Essentially, Edna is not able to fulfill any of the roles that are presented by Chopin in the novel: mother, sister, daughter, wife, friend, artist, lover to either man, and finally the traditional role of a woman in society. She does not quite fit into any niche, and thus her suicide at the end of the novel is the only way for Edna’s story to end. Chopin must have Edna die, as she cannot survive in this restrained society in which she does not belong to. The idea of giving yourself completely to serve another, Edna declares “that she would never sacrifice herself for her children, or for any one” (47). However, her awakening is also a realization of her underprivileged position in a male dominated society. The first sign that Edna is becoming comfortable with herself, and beginning to loosen the constrictions of not being an individual is when she asks Robert, her husband, to retrieve her shawl: "When he returned with the shawl she took it and kept it in her hand. She did not put it around her" (30). Edna is trying to establish herself as an artist in a society where there is no tradition of women as creative beings. For any woman to suggest a desire for a role outside the domestic sphere, as more than a mother or housewife, was perceived as
Allen, Priscilla. "Old Critics and New: The Treatment of Chopin's The Awakening." In The Authority of Experience: Essays in Feminist Criticism, ed. Arlyn Diamond and Lee
The irony of the story is the Edna learns how to swim ,yet she used the sea to take her own life. When the author states’ “But it was too late, the shore was far behind her, and her strength was gone. She looked into the distance, and the old terror flamed up for an instant then sank again”(135). In this quote the author ,Chopin, chose to show irony to end Edna’s character because Edna had faced her fears,and learned to swim and not fear the water. However ,the climax is also shocking for the readers because the author had shown Edna’s character as a strong women who had faced her fears and learned how to swim. By Edna killing herself the author shows us that Edna never changed and she is still that weak broken women who is trapped in life that she was so desperate to get out
Throughout The Awakening, a novel by Kate Chopin, the main character, Edna Pontellier showed signs of a growing depression. There are certain events that hasten this, events which eventually lead her to suicide.
Works Cited Chopin, Kate. A. The Awakening. New York: Avon, 1972. Print.
Chopin, Kate. The Awakening. A Norton Critical Edition: Kate Chopin: The Awakening. Ed. Margo Culley. 2nd ed. New York: W.W. Norton, 1994. 3-109.
In Frances Porcher’s response to “The Awakening” by Kate Chopin published in May 1899, she felt as though the book is slightly pathetic. While she believes that one can get absorbed by the principles of the book, she writes that the story makes one feel like “it leaves one sick of human nature and so one feels cui bono!” Furthermore, in Porcher’s analysis, the book “is not a pleasant picture of soul-dissection.” The distress of Edna does not allow one to joyfully engage in the plight that is exhibited. In addition to ugly cross-section, the book makes readers feel, “for the moment, with a little sick feeling, if all women are like the one” that is studied in the book. While it is disheartening to read that women might feel this way about the
Papke, Mary E. Verging on the Abyss: The Social Fiction of Kate Chopin and Edith Wharton. New York: Greenwood P, 1995.
Chopin, Kate. The Awakening. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Nina Baym. New York: W.W. Norton, 2007. 535-625. Print.
Works Consulted Chopin, Kate. A. The Awakening. Anthology of American Literature. Volume II: Realism to the Present.
Chopin, Kate. The Awakening. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Nina Baym et al. 2nd ed. Vol. 2. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1985.
Spangler, George M. "Kate Chopin's The Awakening: A Partial Dissent." Novel: A Forum on Fiction 3 (1970): 249-55.
Bryfonski, Dedria, ed. Women's Issues in Kate Chopin's The Awakening. Farmington Hills, MI: Greenhaven, 2012. Print.