Edna’s Suicide in The Awakening, a Novel by Kate Chopin

The Awakening is a brilliant novella by Kate Chopin written in the 1890s It deals with the themes of woman’s sexuality, roles of wife and mother, identity, etc. The protagonist of the novel is Edna Pontellier, a married woman with three children She struggles with her newly awakened sexuality, the pressures of society to be the perfect wife and mother, and her love for Robert Lebrun. The novella ends with Edna committing suicide by drowning herself. This ending is a much-discussed and criticized point amongst criticism Many critics believe that she committed suicide because she could not deal with the pressures put on her by society to be the perfect wife and mother; that she could not come to terms with her sexuality. Others believe that the act of suicide was an expression of her freedom from all constraints rather than her succumbing to the pressures.

Edna Pontellier was a white woman, raised in a strict Presbyterian household She married a Creole man, Leonce Pontellier against her father’s willr She has two children with him. Edna is not the ideal ‘wife—woman‘ or the ideal ‘mother—woman’ as society wants all women to be When Chopin wrote this book, around 18705 and 18805 in America, ‘Motherhood’ was exalted as an all-but-divine state. It was believed that a woman did not possess any libido or sexuality. To them, having sex was a means to an end, the end of Motherhood. “It was literally unimaginable that any ‘decent’ woman would experience sexual appetite as an immediate and urgent drive, distinct from all other desires and duties” (Wolff a).

The Creole world that she married into had the same social codes that her Presbyterian upbringing imposed on her. However, as long as the codes are followed, it is a more erotic and open society “It revels frankly and happily in the pleasures of the flesh—not merely enjoying these delights with undisguised zest, but discussing them in public with no shame at all”. Such frankness in manner is alien to her. However, it also arouses her curiosity and her suppressed sexuality. Critic Amanda Lee Castro, in an essay, talks about the setting of the novel in relation to Edna‘s sexual awakening. In 18705 and 805, the islands of Grand Isle and Chéneiere Caminada were considered an escape from the restrictive social traditions of New Orleans. It is fitting that Edna’s sexual awakening began in the summer at Grand Isle and also that she finally embraced death and freedom there. We can see by Chopin’s descriptions that those islands were truly a place where people went to escape from the city.

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These islands were sequestered utopias for lovers especially. There are frequent mentions of a pair of lovers on the island in the text: “Two young lovers were exchanging their hearts’ yearnings beneath the children’s tent, which they had found unoccupied” Castro‘s essay details the history and the lores surrounding these islands and how they provided Chopin with rich material from which to draw ttpon. “Chopin portrays the islands as sites of romantic and sexual liberation. This is reflected in the Creoles’ “freedom of expression,” their “entire absence of characteristic prudery,” and Mariequita’s sauciness with men, fulfilling a stereotype of the island girls". Edna was deeply unsatisfied with her domestic life. She felt stuck in the role of wife and mother.

When she went to Grand Isle for the summer, she met Robert Lebruu and fell in love with him. Robert and Mrs. Ratignolle were in part the catalyst for her ‘awakening’, After that, she became even more frustrated with her domestic life. That summer at Grand Isle she began to loosen a little the mantle of reserve that had always enveloped her. There may have been—there must have beeniinfluences, both subtle and apparent, working in their several ways to induce her to do this; but the most obvious was the influence of Adele Ratignolle. The excessive physical charm of the Creole had first attracted her, for Edna had a sensuous susceptibility to beauty. Although Mr, Pontellier was a decent enough husband, he failed to arouse any passion in her. “all declared that Mr. Pontellier was the best husband in the world. Mrs. Pontellier was forced to admit that she knew of none better".

When they left Grand Isle and went back to New Orleans, Edna abandoned all pretences of domesticity that had been forced upon her. She began to do as she liked as a way of revolt. However, she was not able to define the changes within her since the summer. Her sexual ‘awakening’ had given her no definite direction to follow; she was listless, searching for a purpose, wandering about the town on her own. She was not sure what she wanted to do, however, it was obvious that Mr. Pontellier and the children (rather the idea of the duties of wife and mother) felt like an albatross around her neck. She is immensely relieved when they leave. Mrs, Ratignolle and Mlle. Reisz were the two stereotypes of women at that time. One was the ideal mother-woman and wife-woman, and the other is an unmarried eccentric woman who lives on her own and avoids society.

Chopin shows us that these were the only two options available for a woman like Edna at that time, Either she would have to conform herself to the roles of mother and wife, or she would have to live like a recluse as Mlle. Reisz does.  Neither of those options were acceptable to her. Edna wanted to live her life by her own rules, not in the moulds prescribed by society, Instead, she moves out of her husband’s house and moves into a house she paid for with her own money, money she earned from selling her paintings and from gambling on horses. When Mrs. Ratignolle calls Edna to assist her in childbirth, Edna sees for the first time the pain of childbirth. Since she had been drugged during her own experiences, she didn‘t remember much.

This opens her eyes to just how much her own body forces her into these roles. As she had told Mrs. Ratignolle, “I would give up the unessentia]; I would give my money, I would give my life for my children; but I wouldn‘t give myself". The thought of giving up her soul for her children is unacceptable to her. “The children appeared before her like antagonists who had overcome her; who had overpowered and sought to drag her into the soul‘s slavery for the rest of her days But she knew a way to elude them She was not thinking of these things when she walked down to the beach”. It is not the children or her husband themselves who have imposed themselves upon her. ln fact, she has very little to do with the care for her children since they employ a quadroon for them. However it is what they represent, the bonds and constraints placed on her by society, the expectations of everyone about being the perfect wife and mother, that chokes her.

It is that which makes her despair. Nature (woman) and society were the two strongest forces attempting to mould Edna. As Marilynne Robinson says in her introduction to the novella, “The appropriate question to ask is not whether her behaviour isjustified, but what is revealed in it” (Robinson xiii)r Edna hadn’t formed any close female friends and the intimacy that existed between friends was unfamiliar to her. She had no way of sharing or expressing her feelings. She felt extremely frustrated and her oppression increased with the inability to express, “Even as a child she had lived her own small life all within herself. At a very early period she had apprehended instinctively the dual lifeithat outward existence which conforms, the inward life which questions”.

Edna hopes for freedom and an ideal life with Robert. However, she realizes that he too wants to put the same constraints of marriage and motherhood on her, Only the man would change from Leonce Pontellier to Robert Lebrun, the situation would remain the same for Edna. In light of all this, one feels that Edna chose the only path to freedom that she felt was open to her. She did not want to become a spinster like Mlle. Reisz, nor did she want to fall in the same trap of marriage and motherhood with Robert, She awakens from her dream-like trance to the horrifying realization that the life she wants will never be available to her. ”The years that are gone seem like dreamsiif one might go on sleeping and dreamingibut 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”.

She had realized that she would never find true happiness in this society, She chose freedom in the only way she felt would truly set her free, embracing the sea and losing herself in the abyss of solitude. This ‘trend‘ of heroines becoming sexually awakened and then killing themselves towards the end of the novel is not unique to The Awakening. It can also be seen in many other 19‘‘1 century novels like in Flaubert’s Madame Bovary (1857)> Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina (1876), Theodor Fontane’s Efii Briest (1895), and George Eliot’s Mill on the Floss (1860). Critic Maria Mikolchak traces this pattern in her essay, “Kate Chopin's The Awakening as Part of the Nineteenth-Century American Literary Tradition". She makes an interesting observation when she says that women like Edna find it difficult to express and define themselves and their desires when they don’t fit into the ‘wife-woman’ or ‘mother-woman‘ roles.

They are essentially fighting a problem with no name, unable to articulate their own self. “Indeed, one of the most striking features of the nineteenth-century adultery novel is the inevitable death of the erring heroine” (Mikolchak 40). Critics interpret her suicide in different ways, One group believe that Edna could not handle the pressures and be strong enough to face criticism from society. Others believe that by committing suicide, she actually set herself free, that the act was a feminist one. Critic Nancy Walker says that Edna‘s suicide is a result of a series of emotional decisions made by her, She believes that Edna does not have control over her own actions and carries them out unthinkingly. When she goes out into the sea for a final time, she sees a bird with a broken wing trying to fly and failing.

This could be her imagination, a symbol of her own broken spirit. Mlle. Reisz tells her that anyone who wishes to break the rules of society and fight against them must have strong wings Le. a strong spirit, “The bird that would soar above the level plain of tradition and prejudice must have strong wings. It is a sad spectacle to see the weaklings bruised, exhausted, fluttering back to earth”. When Edna sees the bird with the broken wings, it might indicate that she believes herself to not be strong enough to fight society, that her spirit is broken Chopin leaves us with this ambiguity of Edna‘s suicide, whether it was liberating or merely tragic, another woman falling victim to the society. It is up to the reader to decide and interpret it in a way that satisfies and inspires them.

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