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A review by ccorliss
The Awakening by Kate Chopin
reflective
5.0
hm …
the description of langor and ennui, of a painful longing, of the richness of items around her, of object’s decadence … of her deepest desires, desire she had not known before, of *female* desire … for something which is out of her reach; a life which is not to be hers … a freedom which does not exist in her own physical body … in her own tangible life … the oscillation of colorful euphoria, of exhilaration and joy and love in life, in independence, in this mental conception of her own *person-ness*, with the deep lulls of depression, that creeping magnitude of vast despair, of destitution at ownership of her each passing day …
and so i am left to dwell with the conclusion of this story. has she succeeded in killing herself? what if she failed? i am inclined to hold out hope that she was not successful, that her naked body was found sputtering ashore, that some visceral human desire of another sort—for survival with no other thought above it—overcame her, and she comes back to life, in some new way.
the used copy i read from, the previous reader left the most rank annotations throughout that maybe made me reactively root for edna pontellier even more than maybe i would have without their dumb, judgmental notes. but i think that edna is a compelling character, regardless. you yearn to see her free enough in her life, enough to have had an option of another life, one where she can be “”mannish”” and like her father, perhaps without kids, perhaps with a man she truly lusted for and loved and was able to stay in love with, maybe have children with that man and still experience the joy she had with her kids toward the end of this story. i’m not blind to the suggestions at something between her and mademoiselle reisz. and perhaps that would be a door in a different world for edna. but i’m not that stuck on that possibility—a lesbian story would unfold if it were meant to unfold. rather, i am struck by the feeling that mademoiselle reisz is special because she understands edna like no one else has understood her before. and that this elemental understanding is something profound. perhaps she senses these lurking feelings edna possesses, or perhaps at times posses edna … and she knows of this love, lust, whatever it may be that is regardless deep and apparent in its attractive pull, between edna and robert. and so she understands this part of edna which no one else does; she sees edna in a more complete way, embracing her urges and whims for her personal expression and ability to embody freedom, for joy in her own person, to bring these rich feeling in to her own life.
and so i do not know that i like the ending per se, i mean, who could? but in the way i hope it goes beyond the last page, i am still drawn to how chopin writes of how this montage brings about the sensual feelings of freedom. the freedom of being a new born adult all over, baptized by the sun, embraced by the ocean’s endless bounty of salt water, to be brought in contact with a feeling of humanness that comes with her being naked before the sky. it is so sensual it is in some ways euphoric. but her numbness is haunting, and i hope, deeply, that the story we are left to continue off the page is one where she is brought to live a new kind of life, however hard or outcast, where she may live as she wishes, where she may feel free and be both excited by feeling, and at peace with being, alive.
the description of langor and ennui, of a painful longing, of the richness of items around her, of object’s decadence … of her deepest desires, desire she had not known before, of *female* desire … for something which is out of her reach; a life which is not to be hers … a freedom which does not exist in her own physical body … in her own tangible life … the oscillation of colorful euphoria, of exhilaration and joy and love in life, in independence, in this mental conception of her own *person-ness*, with the deep lulls of depression, that creeping magnitude of vast despair, of destitution at ownership of her each passing day …
and so i am left to dwell with the conclusion of this story.
the used copy i read from, the previous reader left the most rank annotations throughout that maybe made me reactively root for edna pontellier even more than maybe i would have without their dumb, judgmental notes. but i think that edna is a compelling character, regardless. you yearn to see her free enough in her life, enough to have had an option of another life, one where she can be “”mannish”” and like her father, perhaps without kids, perhaps with a man she truly lusted for and loved and was able to stay in love with, maybe have children with that man and still experience the joy she had with her kids toward the end of this story. i’m not blind to the suggestions at something between her and mademoiselle reisz. and perhaps that would be a door in a different world for edna. but i’m not that stuck on that possibility—a lesbian story would unfold if it were meant to unfold. rather, i am struck by the feeling that mademoiselle reisz is special because she understands edna like no one else has understood her before. and that this elemental understanding is something profound. perhaps she senses these lurking feelings edna possesses, or perhaps at times posses edna … and she knows of this love, lust, whatever it may be that is regardless deep and apparent in its attractive pull, between edna and robert. and so she understands this part of edna which no one else does; she sees edna in a more complete way, embracing her urges and whims for her personal expression and ability to embody freedom, for joy in her own person, to bring these rich feeling in to her own life.
and so i do not know that i like the ending per se, i mean, who could? but in the way i hope it goes beyond the last page, i am still drawn to how chopin writes of how this montage brings about the sensual feelings of freedom. the freedom of being a new born adult all over, baptized by the sun, embraced by the ocean’s endless bounty of salt water, to be brought in contact with a feeling of humanness that comes with her being naked before the sky. it is so sensual it is in some ways euphoric. but her numbness is haunting, and i hope, deeply, that the story we are left to continue off the page is one where she is brought to live a new kind of life, however hard or outcast, where she may live as she wishes, where she may feel free and be both excited by feeling, and at peace with being, alive.
Content Warnings
Minor: Suicide