ENCW 205: Art & Identity in New Orleans

“The Awakening” by Kate Chopin is a reflection the 19th century and the struggles women of the time faced, both externally within society, and internally, with their roles in a family system. This novel shows how much men and the standing within society took control of women’s lives and happiness.
The following quote from Mr. Pontellier help to reflect the ideals of the time, “When Mr. Pontellier learned of his wife’s intention to abandon her home and take up her residence elsewhere, he immediately wrote her a letter of unqualified disapproval and remonstrance. She had given reasons which her was unwilling to acknowledge as adequate. He hoped she had not acted upon her rash impulse; and he begged her to consider first, foremost, and above all else, what people would say.” These words from Mr. Pontellier’s point of view reflect his wife Edna as rash, impulsive, and out of his control, while also making him look bad. His first concern was not with why his wife left, but in saving face within the community.
Throughout the novel, women are depicted as senseless, reckless, and below people, only good for making a good home and tending the children. This is in contrast to the idealism Enda Pontellier discovers within the community of women who are independent thinkers. When she tries to integrate her newfound independence into her life, she is repeatedly told by both her husband and the society they live in to go home and spend her husband’s money.
For instance, the quotes “I’ve heard she is partially demented” and ” I’m told she’s extremely disagreeable and unpleasant,” in refence to one of Mrs. Pontellier’s friends, Mademoiselle Reisz, who spoke in metaphors of women finding freedom. The men, in a farewell dinner, express that a woman whom they find disagreeable is crazy, unpleasant, and incomprehensible in speaking out for women’s independence and freedom.
In the end, Edna’s quest for free thought and independence leads her to tsking a swim, as reflected in her previous swimming explorations and fears to swim “where no women had swum before”, where she begins to hear the sounds of those long since passed, and it is assumed she drowns in her quest for independent both from her husband, and the oppressive society she is in.