The Awakening

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.

As Edna becomes her own person, she also becomes a better artist. Being an artist comes with responsibility in the novel. Prior to her awakening, she does not consider herself as an artist. The novel states, “Mrs. Pontellier had brought her sketching materials, which she sometimes she dabbled. She liked the dabbling” (13). After she awakens however, her artistic abilities increase and she begins to sell her artwork. Ironically, Edna and Mademoiselle Reisz have similar characteristics. Mademoiselle Reisz is Edna’s spiritual mother in a way, and the two have a love hate relationship. Mademoiselle Reisz is a key factor in Edna’s awakening, and she encourages her as she goes towards her heart’s desires. She knows that Edna does not want to answer to her husband or always watch after her children, and the best way to do so is to be like Mademoiselle Reisz.

Edna’s children are different from other children, if one of her boys fell “…he was not apt to rush crying to his mother’s arms for comfort; he would more likely pick himself up, wipe the water out of his eyes and the sand out of his mouth, and go on playing”. Edna is not a typical Creole “mother-woman” who “idolized her children (and) worshipped her husband” (8) and at times that results in her husband’s claims that she neglects her children. Edna’s children leave her attached to her husband, and even if she is somehow able to escape the relationship with her husband she will never be able to escape her children. She realizes this and whether consciously or not, doesn’t care for her children the way this is expected of a woman in her time period. When Adele Ratignolle reminds her to, “Think of the children!…Oh think of the children! Remember them!” Edna finally realizes her decisions affect her and her children. Instead of accepting her responsibility as a mother Edna decides to give up, and does so by committing suicide.

The movie leaves out a crucial part of the novel that is a peak of Edna's independence. This peak is Edna's dinner party, at which she invites ten friends to a celebratory final dinner in Leonce's house before she moves into the "pigeon house." The party is Edna's last grand gesture. It is "visual, social proof, accompanied by approval and joy, that Edna is moving out,' an artist on her own." (Skaggs 96) This party symbolizes Edna's freedom from her sheltered, unhappy life in her passive role. She is even dressed the part. Her gold satin gown and jewelry "suggested the regal woman, the one who rules, who looks on, who stands alone." (Chopin 118) This vital scene in Edna's awakening is

Deeper into Edna’s alternate personality, she begins to realize how much positive has come from the new Edna. When the Doctor and Edna finally get to meet, the Doctor talks with Edna in hopes of changing her back to the stereotypical wife Mr. Pontellier wants her to be. In the conversation between the two, Edna says, "The years that are gone seem like dreams--if one might go on sleeping and dreaming--but to wake up and find--oh! well! Perhaps it is better to wake up after all, even to suffer, rather than to remain a dupe to illusions all one's life" (Choppin 38). Edna is praising herself for being one of the few women who have been able to be a realist, and for not letting illusions pull her into a fantasy life. She believes it is better for one to live aware and conscious to the world around one’s self. This being a new way of looking at life at the time, especially for a woman. While there are many positive changes that are present in Edna’s life due to her recent awakening, there are some negatives as well. There are days where Edna feels as if she understands the world and everything within it. But then there are days where Edna feels utterly alone. Edna’s thoughts are expressed, in which she says, “There were days when she was unhappy, she did not know why—when it did not seem worthwhile to be glad or sorry, to be alive or dead...She could not work on such a day, nor weave fancies to stir her pulses and warm her blood” (Choppin 19). Edna expresses that she feels what appears to be a depressed mood at time, due to the life she has become awakened to. It is a confusing sadness that she does not know how to explain, completely countering the days of pure happiness that she often feels. Thus showing the change in Edna’s psychological views are apparent, and bring both happy, understandable thoughts, as well as

This is the point in the story where Edna starts listening to her voices inside her gives into her inner desires. She continues to struggle with the fact that she married out of convenience and she has two sons that she really does not want to mother as well as the fact that she loves being an artist. In chapter x, Edna goes to the sea only to realize that all her swimming lesson had finally paid off that summer and she was swimming. Chopin describes this even like a baby finally getting enough confidence to walk and the baby walks realizing its own strength and power. While swimming, she soon gets tired and has quick feeling overcome her of the possibility of drowning but quickly swims back to shore. She has conquered her greatest fear and now feels like a new woman that is no longer afraid of her true feelings. Edna’s affair with Robert continues and he eventually leaves Grand Isle and her and her family returns home.

Edna’s deliberate sacrifice is that she chooses a man who has her relive her young fantasies and mind over her husband and family who demonstrate that responsibility and maturity dictate her life. Before Edna meets Robert, the man who reminisces youth, she has her up and downs with her husband but has a consistent and regular lifestyle with her family. She constantly praises her children over everything but however,

After rejecting to go to bed all evening, Edna is lastly overwhelmed with fatigue. Although Edna won the stand-off with her spouse over Edna joining her husband in bed immediately and got Robert to go to the island with her, she is experiencing the consequences of her impulsive and erratic behavior. While at church, Edna starts to feel faint and gets a cephalgia, so she suddenly leaves the mass with Robert following hastily after her. Robert transports her to Madame Antoine's household, where it is colder, silent, and passive. Madame Antoine is very welcoming and consents Edna to slumber in her vast, hygienic bed. Edna slowly disrobes and she observes the magnificence of her arms for the first time, and her senses are stimulated by the freshness of the sites and people around her, soon falling into slumber.

Edna is childish and foolish about her romances. She often cares for herself and not for her children or husband. Edna is very immature for her age and for having two children to look after. Mr. Pontellier; Edna’s husband; once said “If it was not a mother’s place to look after children, whose on earth was it?” (Chopin 1214). Implying to Edna that she did not care for her children like other wives took care of their children. Edna falls in love with a man named Robert. Even though she is married, Edna does not care about the consequences that could occur. She does not tell her husband, nor does he realize what Edna is doing behind his back. He is more interested in his work and studies. Once Robert leaves for Mexico, Edna finds that her friendships with Madame Ratignolle and Mademoiselle Reisz become stronger and stronger as time goes by when Robert and her husband are gone. They keep

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:

Edna fails to control her impulses of her sexual desires and willingly breaks social conformity of her era. She undoubtedly leaves her family to pursue a life without her children and husband. “The acme of bliss, which would have been marriage with the tragedian, was not for her in this world. As the devoted wife of a man who worshipped her, she felt she would take her place with a certain dignity in the world of reality, closing the portals forever behind her upon the realm of romance and dreams” (Chopin 21). Edna felt destined to live the fantasy life, and with that she believed starting over in another relationship would best benefit her. Morally, this wasn’t acceptable to society around her and she would be seen as a bad mother and wife, yet this did not seem to phase her. Further on Edna takes a moment to reflect if what she is doing is what she believes is following her passions. “But as she sat there amid her guests, she felt the old ennui overtake her; the hopelessness which so often assailed her, which came upon her like an obsession, like something extraneous, independent of volition. … There came over her the acute longing which always summoned into her spiritual vision the presence of the beloved one”(Chopin 159). After Edna realizes that following her passions may have led her to the wrong place, she finds herself still in a position she can be happy with, which is with the “beloved one”. Edna has

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.

She strives to go against the norm of society and demonstrate her individuality as a woman of the Victorian Era. Edna declines the role of a mother and wife, in order for her to live the life that she chooses. As she chooses to fight for her individuality, she also decides to live out her sexual desires and break out of the limitations imposed upon her from society. Through the atmosphere that Kate Chopin depicts, Edna’s infatuation for Robert and Alcee are revealed when she exhibits her true feelings for them. As a final action to push for women’s rights, Edna tries to pursue her love for art and music instead of following the domestic rules of taking care of her husband and children.

After returning home, Edna ignores all of her responsibilities socially. She would occupy herself by painting (Chopin 1335). Her husband see the change in Edna and begins to worry about her. More and more, Edna is challenging gender norms. At this point, she does not care what anyone thinks of her. She simply wants to be herself. Now that she has had a taste of her liberation, she does not want to give it up.

The film Awakenings is a true story based on a neurologist’s work in the Bronx during the 1960s. Dr. Malcolm Sayer is hired at a psychiatric hospital as a clinical physician and finds that the hospital contains patients in a catatonic state. Having only a research background, Sayer is unsure about taking the job at first. While spending time with patients and conducting research, he discovers that some of the catatonic patients respond to certain stimuli. Also while doing so he notices that some of the patients are linked to having encephalitis in the 1920s and 1930s. Most of the patients’ state is like that of Parkinson’s disease - a disorder of the nervous system that affects movement and causes tremors. Wanting to treat the disease, Sayer