Edna Pontellier and the dichotomy of will.

Peter Rostovsky Professor Zeniou English 220 20 March 2014 Edna Pontellier and the dichotomy of will The Awakening, a short novel highly controversial for its time and place, covered numerous topics still relevant to this and probably any other human society. The questions of women’s independence, maternity and familiar fragmentation, posed in this piece of literature are presented through the character of Edna Pontellier. They handle the disintegrated mind of a woman with two children, a husband, a lover and a subsequential load of responsibilities, on a silver platter to the reader. The combination of those factors, in one way or another, leads to the set of epiphanies that constitute her “awakening.” The end of the novel and the heroine’s suicide dragoon the reader into one of two choices: we can count it as a sign of Mrs.Pontellier’s weakness, or as an expression of her willpower and rebellion against the framework of life built around her. Despite the dark imagery presented in the last chapter of the novel, which can serve as a strong evidence of Mrs.Pontellier’s weakness, I believe the textual evidences, such as the use of names, development of duality in Edna Pontellier’s character and the symbols used in the text, allow us to consider the heroine's actions as not simply driven by frailty, but rather as a representation of her conscious choice to “give up the unessential” for the sake of fully transgressing into herself, Edna. Before trying to assert a position on Edna Pontellier’s suicide, we must consider the fact that Mrs. Pontellier in the beginning of the story is not the same Mrs. Pontellier that commits suicide in the end. Or rather, the woman that commits suicide is not Mrs. Pontellier at all, at least in Kate Chopin’s mind. Aside from paying attention to the traits heroine develops throughout the story, which will be considered further on in this essay, allow me to describe a simple experiment I have performed while studying the text. Throughout the first sixteen pages (Word Document, Arial 10) of the novel the name “Mrs. Pontellier” is used exactly fifty five times. The name “Edna” is used twenty six times. Now, let’s proceed to the last 16 pages of the novel. In those, the name “Mrs. Pontellier” is used 24 times, while “Edna” appears exactly 60 times. The frequency of use of "Mrs.Pontellier" in the beginning of the story is inversely proportional to that in the end, same applies to the use of "Edna," while in the middle of the novel the two names converge and are used with similar frequencies. This information allows us to draw a number of conclusions. First of all, Edna Pontellier is a very dynamic character. Her actions are not stagnant. Her behavioral pattern develops as we go through the novel. Her internal changes are gradual and, quite possibly, expectable, but for a woman in that time period the gravity of those changes are incomprehensible. The beginning of the story, however, presents us with Mrs. Pontellier, a valuable artifact in Mr. Pontellier’s collection. Leonce, perhaps understandably, considers his standing and his wife’s position from the viewpoint of the shrewd businessman that he is. He respects the social contract his wife has willingly signed, the proof of which rests on one of her fingers. As a co-signer of the contract there are things expected of her: “He reproached his wife with […] her habitual neglect of the children. If it was not a mother’s place to look after children, whose on earth was it? He himself had his hands full with his brokerage business” (Chopin 7). Mrs. Pontellier is the one breaking the rules, disobeying the code of honor, committing a contract fraud; the notion of mutual love is conveniently left out of that not-so-tacit agreement. After hearing her husband acknowledge these pretenses, a slow revelation occurs within Edna. This revelation is discovered and unpacked by Mademoiselle Reisz’s music and persona. We know that it is after hearing Mademoiselle’s performance, Edna is “waking” up; we can assume that Edna’s awakening is the reason Mademoiselle performs: “Mademoiselle Reisz perceived [Edna’s] agitation and even her tears…she said: ‘You are the only one worth playing for. Those others? Bah!’” (Chopin 26). Right after this moment in the book, Edna finally learns how to swim; the symbolism of this, as we understand, is profound; it is in water she starts to fully comprehend how much time she had not been herself, how much time she spent living Adele's role. Perhaps, this is the exact moment, where the focus of the narration shifts from dependent, tied to the realms of her socium Mrs. Pontellier to lofty and, I daresay, independent Edna. Along with that shift, the ratio of “Mrs. Pontellier” to “Edna” changes proportionally. Thus, she continues her transformation through her affair with, first, her own body, and then with Arobin and Robert. She moves out of her husband's house; she neglects pretty much every confronting opinion. Yet, it is apparent that despite her becoming a "new" person, we see certain jolts in the backward direction from the intended behavior. These rapid and short-termed changes in behavior appear before us throughout the novel. In the beginning of the text, these jolts are directed away from the image of a Creole mother-woman, in the end - toward that image, away from being, as she calls it, a "soaring bird." Despite Mademoiselle Reisz's scornful critique of one of Edna's shameful tweaks back to the traditional Creole way of living, her "dinner party", during which Mrs. Pontellier loses her temper upon the cathartic epiphany of Robert's significance to her, through Victor's song and frivolous actions (Chopin 86), it is important to understand that Mademoiselle Reisz, although poses herself as a strong, independent woman, still acquiesces to the creole society. Edna actually dares to go a mile further on her path of disintegration herself from the Creoles. While for Mrs. Pontellier and Mademoiselle Reisz, suicide is not an option due to their ties to the world, their social statuses and, in the main heroine's case, her family, for Edna it is. Our first impression on Edna's suicide is that it is a sign of weakness; it comes from our westernized and deeply rooted in our culture perception of sanctity of life of the child - "it is our party to bear [children] with courage, and it should be part of our pride in our sex..." (Dorothy Dix 151). This standard of thought reveals us that for Dorothy Dix, probably the most active and famous female activist of that time period, a woman's intrinsic value is not her personality, her actions, nor even her humanity, but it is her unique physiological capability - her motherhood. To be a woman, for that time period is to be a mother-woman, something Edna is not. She does not pride herself on participating in sexual intercourse with a male representative of her specie and then producing progeny, quite the opposite. Self-realization for a mother-woman is to making sure her husband is pleased with her, the social status is ensured and the children are up-to-par with the standards of the society. Perhaps Edna’s self-realization required conscious disintegration from her environs, perhaps suicide was a viable option. Although Chopin’s main character is a woman full of uncertainties and conflicts, and we cannot be fully certain of her intentions upon entering the water of Grand Isle, the assumption that Edna Pontellier commits suicide out of desire to express herself remains valid. Throughout the novel she develops from valuated Mrs. Pontellier, trying to keep up with the image of mother-woman, to, simply, Edna. By going beyond the boundaries of social norms of the Creole society, Edna Pontellier develops a character we do not see in any other personage of the novel; Mademoiselle Reisz is not an exception. Her lover is not ready to give up everything for her, her husband fails to recognize her as an equal person, Mademoiselle Reisz is, although appears independent and strong, doesn’t go to the extreme. Her suicide is the logical ending of the story – it is imbedded in her inability to live within the of her inadmissible environs. Works Cited Author’s last name, first name. Title of Book. City: Publisher, Year. Author’s last name, first name. “Title of Article.” Title of Publication Date Published: Pages. Author’s last name, first name. “Title of Online Article.” Title of Online Publication Version (Year Published): Pages. Date Accessed <Web address>. “Title of Article.” Title of Media. CD-ROM. City: Publisher, Year. Rostovsky 5 Student’s Last Name 1