the awakening - kate chopin
much more relatable than anticipated
As I tear through the large stack of books I’ve impulsively bought, I’m starting to finally pick up the classics that I avoided when I was in classes and mentally overloaded. When I picked up Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, it was much more fun to read than I expected. I do love nineteenth century literature, but it takes more effort to read than contemporary books because of the advanced vocabularies, unfamiliar technology and terms, and more formal approach to writing. This novella, though, was very different from some of the other classics I’ve read.
One of the biggest things that stood out to me about this book is the way that I could actually picture the main character as a person today. Some characters still did feel very dated, but the protagonist, Edna, felt surprisingly modern given that the book was written in 1899. Her mood swings weren’t just strange and ignored bouts of “illness” told from a third party perspective. Edna was perplexed by them, but she wasn’t overlooked or sent away or told she was crazy. She didn’t harshly judge herself or try to change; she just tried to find ways to get through them until she felt happier, as one would do today. Instead of trying to get “better,” she tried to get happier, which I think is a notable distinction. Her “awakening” truly felt like her becoming a more relatable character rather than some ideal.
This contrasts with some of the female characters in other books from around this time period that tend to do everything perfectly, even when they fail. They always put everyone else first and make noble choices, but they don’t tend to let go or give into an impulse. If they do, they punish themselves severely. It was refreshing to see a woman in this time period completely let go of things that displeased her and try to live for herself. It made her seem more human for her to admit to these things and sometimes be self indulgent.
This is not to say that I completely see myself within her or think it was always good for her to do everything she did, but I think it was very important for someone to be so brazen and open about this in 1899. I know some authors did try to tackle these ideas, but most of the (American) literature I’m familiar with makes people seem evil or bad for not representing Protestant values. However, Edna is not depicted so poorly for her different thoughts. This kind of makes The Awakening the 1899 equivalent of a “good for her” story, despite the last two pages of the book.
I think a lot of books at the time that had a brave, intelligent, independent female lead still showed her finding some semblance of peace with being a domestic and motherly woman. I wouldn’t quite say it undermines the messages of the book for them to end up feeling this way, but it still forces an assimilation with the current cultural norms. Instead, with Chopin’s work, the assimilation isn’t necessary for her story to be worth telling. In my own reading, I don’t think she’s supposed to be seen as good or bad. She’s just a woman. I’m not at expert at 1899-era America, but I would think this is kind of revolutionary for the time.
The setting of New Orleans was also very interesting. I was able to learn a little bit about Creole culture, at least through the main character’s point of view. It was an interesting contrast against my knowledge of the time that lies primarily in the northeastern region of the US or England. I think that the story could’ve taken place in any part of the US and worked, but it was interesting to get little sprinkles of information about the setting to make it a bit more important to the story.
I listened to a podcast episode by HotLiterati exploring Chopin’s work, and I generally agreed with what she was saying. The host compared The Awakening to the way that modern young divorced women feel: they have decided early on to become a wife, and once they let go of that role they are able to find themselves with their recently fully developed brain. I thought this take was really interesting in the way that the story still applies in today’s world, possibly even more so because it’s more common for women to leave their marriages. It is probably hard to find yourself once you’ve matured after devoting so much of your early adulthood to someone else, but this novella shows a positive lens in which this feels like “waking up” and being able to have the freedom to do what you please.
The podcast also talked about how Chopin struggled with the institution of marriage, and how resisting conformity can be liberating and lovely and lonely. It can be peaceful to wake up early by yourself to the sound of silence, but the looming hours ahead day after day in self imposed isolation can be hard. I think Edna shows us a good balance of the positives and the negatives, and we get a lot of insight into how she spent the positive days. It wasn’t perfect, but it seemed to be worth it.
I also really liked how the podcast host (I’m sorry I couldn’t find her name on the Spotify page so I keep avoiding saying it) touched on the idea of not looking upon others as sheep if you feel you’ve awakened but others haven’t. I think we sort of see this in the book in how Edna does not really use her awakening as a way to insult the other women in her life. She is truly focused on understanding herself as her own person rather than comparing herself to others. I thought this was a very important topic to note in the story because — again — it’s something that still applies today.
Anyway, I hope you’ve enjoyed this post! If you haven’t read the book, I’d really recommend giving it a try. I thought it was a great window into older American literature that wasn’t super hard to get into or understand, which is good for people trying to tackle older literary work or dive into different genres and authors. The Awakening as well as Chopin’s other short stories were really enjoyable to read. Perhaps if people really like this post I’ll make another one devoted to the other short stories in my book, which I didn’t realize were included until I opened it and saw that it also contained 8 short stories in addition to The Awakening. Let me know what you think!
ttyl,
emily