The Awakening Chapter 18 Analysis

She leaves the care of her children to her grandmother, abandoning them and her husband when she leaves to live in the pigeon-house. To her, leaving her old home with Léonce is very important to her freedom. Almost everything in their house belonged to him, so even if he were to leave, she would still feel surrounded by his possessions. She never fully becomes free of him until she physically leaves the house. That way, Edna has no ties whatsoever to that man. Furthermore, Edna indulges in more humanistic things such as art and music. She listens to Mademoiselle Reisz’s playing of the piano and feels the music resonate throughout her body and soul, and uses it as a form of escapism from the world. Based on these instances, Edna acts almost like a very young child, completely disregarding consequences and thinking only about what they want to do experience most at that moment. However, to the reader this does not necessarily appear “bad”, but rather it is seen from the perspective of a person who has been controlled by others their entire life and wishes to break free from their grasp. In a way, she is enacting a childlike and subconscious form of revenge by disobeying all known social constructs of how a woman should talk, walk, act, and interact with others.

Another reason Mademoiselle Reisz is significant to Edna is because she is the only one who knows about and Robert and Edna’s love. Mademoiselle explains Robert’s love for Edna, “ It is because he loves you, poor fool, and is trying to forget you, since you are not free to listen to him or belong to him ” (95). Edna’s love for Robert is the reason why she quickly becomes uninvolved with her family and the life she is socially supposed to have. She does what she wants with disregard to anything her husband has to say.

Robert presents himself as a solution to the lack of romantic love in Edna's life. A young, nice looking man, he spends his summer devoted to Edna. She likes his attention and his adoring manner draws her to him. As they spend more time together, he begins to sing her songs and recite romantic poetry. This romantic aspect fills a void in her life. "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" (45). Robert gives her the picture perfect, model, swept off her feet in love romance that she direly needs. However, he soon retires to Mexico for a business venture and leaves Edna to pine for him in his absence. While he is gone, Edna thinks constantly of Robert and begs Mademoiselle Reisz to allow her to read the letter Robert sends. Devastated, she finds no mention of her name in the letter. When Robert finally returns, he pays little attention to her and again departs, telling her he is leaving because he loves her. "She writhed with a jealous pang. She wondered when he would come back. He had not said he would come back. She had been with him, had heard his voice and touched his hand. But some way he had seemed neared to her off there in Mexico" (103). While Robert helped awaken Edna's sexuality, he left her again, and she now knew the true joys and pains of

The final reason for Edna’s escape from her troublesome life is the failure of her relationship with Robert. Edna was able to find some form of escape through her desire and hope of being with Robert, but when those plans fell through Edna feels as if she has nothing to look forward to, nothing to live for in life. Robert realizes that he and Edna will never be able to have a true

A foil for Adele Ratignolle, Mademoiselle Reisz serves as a living example of an entirely self-sufficient woman, who is ruled by her art and her passions, rather than by the expectations of society. A small homely woman, unmarried and childless, Mademoiselle Reisz is a talented pianist and somewhat of a recluse. She represents the anti-mother along independence and freedom. The first time she is introduced in the novel she is introduced as being “eccentric and quarrelsome”, from that we are able to infer that she is unlike the other women. Later as the novel continues to progress from her house and manner of expression we are again able to infer that she is unlike the other Creole women. For her home is an apartment above everyone, with a view, that is disagreeable and often cold. Mademoiselle Reisz is the woman that Edna could have become should she have remained independent of her husband and children and lived to old age.

In Chapter 8, Madame Ratignolle pulls Robert aside and asks him to leave Edna alone. She explains that Edna,” Is not one of us; she is not like us. She might make the unfortunate blunder of taking you seriously.” Chopin’s use of repetition in Adele’s dialogue puts emphasis on Edna’s uniqueness and labels her as an outcast. Adele sees Edna drifting further and further away from the social norms of their accustomed society and wishes to stop her before its too late. Chopin also uses this scene to foreshadow Robert’s unwillingness to commit to Edna as he brushes off Madame Ratignolle’s warning, seeing his relationship with Edna as a fling rather than being the passionate lover Edna craves.

Mademoiselle Reisz is the epitome of what Edna wishes she had become, Edna is covetous of Mademoiselle’s lifestyle. Madame Reisz is a carefree woman who could not care less about what society thinks of her. Edna sees what kind of person Mademoiselle is through her music. “The woman, by her divine art, seemed to have reached Edna’s spirit and set it free.” Through Edna’s friendship with Mademoiselle Reisz, Edna starts to find herself as a woman. “She was seeking herself and finding herself in just such sweet, half-darkness which met her moods.” Mademoiselle Reisz shows Edna that she can be herself and be independent

When Edna eats dinner with Leonce after going out on Tuesday, he exclaims, “Out!... Why, what could have taken you out on Tuesday? What did you have to do?” (Chopin 85). Leonce’s remark of disgust and anger exemplifies the harsh social structure of the Creole society. Edna wants to go out while in New Orleans, but society’s gender roles see it as inappropriate; yet, Edna still goes out and follows her heart, showing another chapter in her awakening. When Edna has her party at the pigeon house, she shows another chapter in her awakening, “this time, however, she casts herself as a queen, as opposed to the virginal Snow White she enacted at Madame Antoine's” (Euripidies). When Edna is finally in a setting where she does not have social restraints she shows her true self and comes off as a queen – something most women of this era are not capable of. This image gives Edna a sense of independence and liberty, which is yet another milestone in her awakening.

In this passage from Chapter 3 of The Awakening, the author’s message is to explore the relationship of a married couple in order to identify the circumstances of each character, and the discrimination of women as a whole. Upon doing this, the author establishes their attitude of one of the characters, Mr. Pontellier, through the use of multiple rhetoric appeals. Chiefly, the author dispenses ethical appeal when evaluating the character of Mr. Pontellier. Paragraph one introduces Mr. Pontellier as he enters his home, evidently seen to be full of vitality, and hardly caring of his actions (2-6).

Her biggest struggle becomes her need to escape motherhood. She feels pressured and confined to be a mother to her two children and a wife to her husband instead of worrying about herself. Society had it seen as “women who idolized their children, worshipped their husbands and esteemed it a holy privilege to efface themselves as individuals…” Throughout the novel she challenges going against the current of society and nature. For example, she tells her friend Adele she “would never sacrifice herself for her children, or for anyone,” when she begins to change her way of life and realizes how important it is to be true to yourself and make yourself happy before you can make anybody else happy. Edna admires a pianist by the name of Mademoiselle Reiz. When Edna is with her she feels more alive than ever because of her ability to be pleased of her different being. Edna takes up the lifestyle of becoming a man after meeting and becoming inspired by Mademoiselle Reiz to try and escape her womanhood. When Edna witnesses the birth of Adele’s baby she realizes that even though she is a male on the outside she will always be a woman and concludes that she cannot be a mother because she sees children as dregs. She drives herself away from the forces of nature and science through the act of

Sacrifices can define one’s character; the definition can either be the highest dignity or the lowest degradation of the value of one’s life. In The Awakening, Kate Chopin implicitly conveys the sacrifice Edna Pontellier makes in the life which provides insight of her character and attributions to her “awakening.” She sacrificed her past of a lively and youthful life and compressed it to a domestic and reserved lifestyle of housewife picturesque. However, she meets multiple acquaintances who help her express her dreams and true identity. Mrs. Pontellier’s sacrifice established her awakening to be defiant and drift away from the societal role of an obedient mother, as well as, highlighting the difference between society’s expectations of

When Edna returns home later that day, she finds out that Robert is leaving for Mexico. She is rather upset with this news and afterwards leaves to go home. "She went directly to her room. The little cottage was close and stuffy after leaving the outer air. But she did not mind; there appeared to be a hundred different things demanding her attention indoors." (42) She tries to ignore that his leaving and not telling her affects her so much. Yet she declines an invitation from Madame Lebrun to go and sit with them until Robert leaves. When Edna sees him leave it tears her up inside that her companion, the one person that she felt understood her, is leaving: "Edna bit her handkerchief convulsively, striving to hold back and to hide, even from herself as she would have hidden from another, the emotion which was troubling - tearing- her. Her eyes were brimming with tears." (44) Edna's life is not complete when Robert leaves:

She is moved by music. During that summer Edna sketches to find an artistic side to herself. She needs an outlet to express who she is. Edna feels that art is important and adds meaning to her life. After the summer is over and they are back to the city and Edna is a changed woman. She makes many steps towards independence. She stops holding "Tuesday socials", she sends her children to live in the country with their grandparents, she refuses to travel abroad with her husband, she moves out of the Lebrun house on Esplanade Street, and to earn money, she starts selling her sketches and betting the horses. She also starts a relationship with another man Alcee Arobin. He meant nothing to her emotionally but she used him for sexual pleasure. Edna evolved above her peers she did not believe that sexuality and motherhood had to be linked. The last step of her "awakening" is the realization that she can not fulfill her life in a society that will not allow her to be a person and a mother. Edna commits suicide in the ocean at Grand Isle.

(Chopin 80) Their relationship is complicated when Robert leaves to Mexico, sends letters to Madame Ratignolle but doesn’t send any to Edna nor does he mention Edna in those letters. He plays with her mind, the fact that he left causes disarray with Edna’s emotions. Wondering why he left, she is told that he was starting to fall in love with her, but due to the complication with her being married, and it being viewed badly she wasn’t allowed to divorce Leonce leaving her

After meeting with Edna, the doctor senses her unhappiness. He knows she desires another man and hopes it is not Alcee Arobin, another womanizer known for his reputation of testing the morals of married women. She seeks out a pianist, Madame Reisz, whom she befriended on the island and, who is in contact with Robert. She reads a letter he wrote to the pianist where he admits his love for Edna. Edna appears to have a similar relationship with Arobin as she