Music
Throughout The Awakening, the manner in which each of the characters uses and understands music gives us a sense of Edna’s ideological alignment in relation to the novel’s other characters. Additionally, Edna’s exploration of music and her meditations upon its significance enable her own (visual) art to flourish. Edna first learns about the emotive power of music from Mademoiselle Reisz. Whereas Adèle Ratignolle’s piano playing had merely conjured sentimental pictures for Edna, the older woman’s playing stirs new feelings and probes unexplored emotional territories in her. Mademoiselle Reisz uses music as a form of artistic expression, not merely as a way of entertaining others. In contrast to Mademoiselle Reisz, the Farival twins play the piano purely for the sake of the gathered company. The twins’ association with the Virgin Mary, and, hence, with a destiny of chaste motherliness, links them thematically with notions of how Victorian women should behave. Their piano playing—entertaining but not provocative, pleasant but not challenging—similarly serves as the model for how women should use art. It becomes clear that, for a Victorian woman, the use of art as a form of self-exploration and self-articulation constitutes a rebellion. Correspondingly, Mademoiselle Reisz’s use of music situates her as a nonconformist and a sympathetic confidante for Edna’s awakening.
The difference Edna detects between the piano-playing of Mademoiselle Reisz and Adèle Ratignolle seems also to testify to Edna’s emotional growth. She reaches a point in her awakening in which she is able to hear what a piece of music says to her, rather than idly inventing random pictures to accompany the sounds. Thus, music, or Edna’s changing reactions to it, also serves to help the reader locate Edna in her development.
Children
Images of children, and verbal allusions to them, occur throughout the novel. Edna herself is often metaphorically related to a child. In her awakening, she is undergoing a form of rebirth as she discovers the world from a fresh, childlike, perspective. Yet Edna’s childishness has a less admirable side. Edna becomes self-absorbed, she disregards others, and she fails to think realistically about the future or to meditate on her the consequences of her actions.
Ultimately, Edna’s thoughts of her children inspire her to commit suicide, because she realizes that no matter how little she depends on others, her children’s lives will always be affected by society’s opinion of her. Moreover, her children represent an obligation that, unlike Edna’s obligation to her husband, is irrevocable.
The relationship Edna has with Mademoiselle Reisz guides her transformation from a wife and mother to a single woman. Reisz acts as a role model for her, someone who does not conform to society’s expectations. Mademoiselle Reisz lives how she wants and accepts both positive and negative consequences of her lifestyle. From the first time Edna sees her play, she admires Mademoiselle Reisz. “The woman, by her divine art, seemed to reach Edna’s spirit and set it free” (623). The music she plays helps calm Edna’s spirit. Mademoiselle Reisz allows Edna to read the letters Robert wrote to her and she supports her in her decision to follow her heart and be with Robert. In doing so, she kindles the passionate flame Edna has for Robert. As Edna wishes t...
For Edna, the times that Reisz plays are times when she "take[s] an impress of the abiding truth" and realizes her true desires(p.34). When Edna visits her, Reisz first improvises at the instrument and then plays the Impromptu which itself has original and adventurous themes. Through music Edna realizes the importance of being self-actualized and making choices. She again feels the same as that night when "new voices awoke in her"—when through music, the way to genuine freedom was revealed to her (p.84). However, having freedom comes with responsibility, which like giving birth to art, requires special skill. For Edna, the fantasies of freedom are transformed into reality wholly only in music and possibly the inability to acquire the skill to deal with her new emotions in life explains the dramatic conclusion to the journey and exploration of the passions that begin on the island.
Kate Chopin uses dynamic characters to help create Edna Pontillier. By using Mr. Pontillier, Edna’s children, and Madame Ratignolle to contrast Edna; and Robert, Madame Raisz, and Arobin as supporting characters to Edna’s untraditional ambitions Kate Chopin produces an independent, unconventional woman. While some characters contrast to Edna all of the characters in The Awakening help to illuminate Edna’s opposition to Creole tradition. Without the use of supporting and contrasting characters Edna would have never been able to fly above tradition.
The fact that Edna is an artist is significant, insofar as it allows her to have a sensibility as developed as the author's. Furthermore, Edna is able to find in Mlle. Reisz, who has established herself as a musician, a role model who inspires her in her efforts at independence. Mlle. Reisz, in confiding to Edna that "You are the only one worth playing for," gives evidence of the common bond which the two of them feel as women whose sensibilities are significantly different from those of the common herd. The French heritage which Edna absorbed through her Creole upbringing allowed her, like Kate Chopin herself, to have knowledge or a way of life that represented a challenge to dominant Victorian conventions.
Another aspects of the story is that once Edna’s awakening begins to take place, she is on a roller coaster of emotions, from the manic exuberance of listening to music and the sounds of the water, her connection to robert--it’s as though all her senses are opened up. Between times, however, she is really depressed, as though all the color that Chopin imparts so beautifully in the descriptions of the other scenes, has become dull and uninteresting. Then, she is flung into an emotional upheaval when she reads Robert’s letter to Mlle Reisz, as the latter plays Wagner. Clearly, these kinds of emotions cannot be borne by a woman whose cultural structure does not admit the building of her own that it might sustain the weight and number. She is overwhelmed. She must escape, and she does, for her situation now is powerfully reminiscent of the “joy that kills” in “Hour.”
By the beginning of the 18th century, there was an unmistakable feeling in the American Colonies that its intemperate society had become too comfortable and assertive, and had forgotten its original intentions of religious prosperity. The result was a revitalization of religious piety that swept through the American colonies between the 1730s and the 1770s, a movement known as "The Great Awakening". This revival was part of an evangelical upsurge occurring simultaneously in England, Scotland, Germany, and other inhabitants on the other side of the Atlantic. In all these Protestant cultures, a new Age of Faith had arisen contrasting the currents of the Age of Enlightenment, advocating the belief that being truly religious meant relying on biblical revelation rather than human reason.
When her husband and children are gone, she moves out of the house and purses her own ambitions. She starts painting and feeling happier. “There were days when she was very happy without knowing why. She was happy to be alive and breathing when her whole being seemed to be one with the sunlight, the color, the odors, the luxuriant warmth of some perfect Southern day” (Chopin 69). Her sacrifice greatly contributed to her disobedient actions. Since she wanted to be free from a societal rule of a mother-woman that she never wanted to be in, she emphasizes her need for expression of her own passions. Her needs reflect the meaning of the work and other women too. The character of Edna conveys that women are also people who have dreams and desires they want to accomplish and not be pinned down by a stereotype.
... important technique the other used in this book. She had used foreshadowing to tell us that Robert was going to go for Edna and that Edna was going to swim way too far out. For example, Madame Ratignolle was telling Robert that Edna was not one of them and Edna would take his flirty actions seriously. Chapter VIII, page 19.
...they represent concerning women’s roles in society. Adele plays to entertain her husband and friends at parties, whereas Reisz plays for the art of the craft, always striving to be more proficient and more artistic. Mademoiselle Reisz easily sees past Edna's front, welcomes Edna into her life, and helps usher in the biggest change of Edna's life. Mademoiselle Reisz and her personality serve as the catalyst for the changes that Edna makes in her life. Edna strives to be Mademoiselle Reisz concerning her element of independence, while Leonce Pontellier, Edna’s husband, would like her to be more like Adele Ratignolle, and it is Edna who is striving to find the delicate balance in the middle.
Ranging from caged parrots to the meadow in Kentucky, symbols and settings in The Awakening are prominent and provide a deeper meaning than the text does alone. Throughout The Awakening by Kate Chopin, symbols and setting recur representing Edna’s current progress in her awakening. The reader can interpret these and see a timeline of Edna’s changes and turmoil as she undergoes her changes and awakening.
The society of Grand Isle places many expectations on its women to belong to men and be subordinate to their children. Edna Pontellier's society, therefore, abounds with "mother-women," who "idolized their children, worshipped their husbands, and esteemed it to a holy privilege to efface themselves as individuals" (689). The characters of Adele Ratignolle and Mademoiselle Reisz represent what society views as the suitable and unsuitable women figures. Mademoiselle Ratignolle is the ideal Grand Isle woman, a home-loving mother and a good wife. Mademoiselle Reisz is the old, unmarried, childless, musician who devoted her life to music instead of a man. Edna switches between the two identities until she awakens to the fact that she needs to be an individual, but encounters resistance from society. This begins the process of her awakening.
In The Awakening, Chopin sets up two characters main characters and a subsidiary female character to serve as foils to Edna. The main characters are Adele Ratignolle, "the bygone heroine of romance" (888), and Mademoiselle Reisz, the musician who devoted her life to music, rather than a man. Edna falls somewhere in between the two, but distinctly recoils with disgust from the type of life her friend Adele leads: "In short, Mrs. Pontellier was not a mother-woman." Adele Ratignolle and Mademoiselle Reisz, the two important female principle characters, provide the two different identities Edna associates with. Adele serves as the perfect "mother-woman" in The Awakening, being both married and pregnant, but Edna does not follow Adele's footsteps. For Edna, Adele appears unable to perceive herself as an individual human being. She possesses no sense of herself beyond her role as wife and mother, and therefore Adele exists only in relation to her family, not in relation to herself or the world. Edna desires individuality, and the identity of a mother-woman does not provide that. In contrast to Adele Ratignolle, Mademoiselle Reisz offers Edna an alternative to the role of being yet another mother-woman. Mademoiselle Reisz has in abundance the autonomy that Adele completely lacks. However, Reisz's life lacks love, while Adele abounds in it. Mademoiselle Reisz's loneliness makes clear that an adequate life cannot build altogether upon autonomy. Although she has a secure sense of her own individuality and autonomy, her life lacks love, friendship, or warmth. Later in the novel we are introduced to another character, her name is Mariequita. Mariequita is described as an exotic black-eyed Spanish girl, whom Edna looks upon with affectionate curiosity. Unlike the finely polished heroine, Mariequita walks on "broad and coarse" bare feet, which she does not "strive to hide". This strikes Edna with a refreshing sense of admiration. To her, the girl's soiled feet symbolize naked freedom, unconstrained by the apparel of civilization. Thus, Edna finds her rather beautiful. Mariequita is more like an unrefined version of Edna, that is, her instinctual self. At times, Mariequita ventures to express the thoughts that are secretly buried in Edna's unconscious.
Edna seeks occupational freedom in art, but lacks sufficient courage to become a true artist. As Edna awakens to her selfhood and sensuality, she also awakens to art. Originally, Edna “dabbled” with sketching “in an unprofessional way” (Chopin 543). She could only imitate, although poorly (Dyer 89). She attempts to sketch Adèle Ratignolle, but the picture “bore no resemblance” to its subject. After her awakening experience in Grand Isle, Edna begins to view her art as an occupation (Dyer 85). She tells Mademoiselle Reisz that she is “becoming an artist” (Chopin 584). Women traditionally viewed art as a hobby, but to Edna, it was much more important than that. Painting symbolizes Edna’s independence; through art, she breaks free from her society’s mold.
Mademoiselle Reisz is first introduced at a party when she plays the piano for Edna Pontellier. Edna is described as being "very fond of music."(25) Music is described as having a way of "evoking pictures in (Edna’s) mind" and causing her to have visions of naked men, the beach, her children, and many other images, which in turn, she attaches various names to. (25) As Mademoiselle plays, a series of physical changes affect Edna. For example, upon the first chord, Chopin describes it as sending "a keen tremor" (26) down (Edna’s) back, and eventually, the piece moves her to tears. Days later, Mademoiselle Reisz and Edna coincidentally meet, and Mademoiselle invites Edna to visit her in the city. This invitation starts the beginning of a great acquaintanceship.
Edna Pontellier first faces a form of awakening when she encounters another character that plays a musical instrument. As the musician plays, the crowd reacts nonchalantly and for the most part disregards it as just another performance with the exception of Mrs. Pontellier whom breaks out into tears due to the vivid imagery that the music brings into her mind. The musician responds to Mrs. Pontellier by telling her that she is the only one who truly speaks her language. This form of awakening brings about one of the themes in the novel in that as a person learns to begin to express themselves, they find that there is a lesser concentration of people who can understand the way that one expresses themselves. This becomes of greater relevance as Edna begins to express herself through the use of her artwork.