Kate Chopin: The Awakening - Edna´s suicide: The Awakening to inner freedom

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Edna ’s suicide: The Awakening to inner freedom

In this research paper I will analyse the main character of Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, Edna Pontellier, and discuss reasons for her suicide. Edna step by step relieves herself from the obligations of her surrounding and undergoes a development that leads to new strength and independence. However, Edna never succeeds in reaching full individuality and goes the only possible way: she commits suicide. The novel gives several hints that lead to the conclusion that Edna’s suicide is an act of liberalization. Edna is surrounded by a society she cannot identify with and does not want to be part of. The role of the woman in the 19 th century was clearly limited to being a mother and wife. Edna does not feel satisfied with this life, as she desires to make her own rules and decisions. During her awakening, she brakes free from the social conventions and tries to lead an independent life. Yet although Edna begins to be independent, the only way she can complete her intention is to commit suicide.

For six years, since the marriage with Léonce Pontellier, Edna accepts her role in society as mother and wife. However, in the summer vacation at Grand Isle Edna begins to understand that she does not want to be oppressed any longer. Slowly, she frees herself from all the duties and refuses the world she has been living in. She lets go of everything around her: her friends and family, but also the security and support from them. She brakes free from financial as well as domestic domination, and even leaves her children to seek for her desires. In the 19 th century the supremacy of a woman was motherhood, and they were judged by their qualities as mothers and wives. Edna, however, does not want to be possessed by her husband and children, and she refuses to self-sacrifice herself for them. She feels that not only the duties of caring for her children, but also motherhood itself limit her independence to become an individual. As Edna sees no future in combining motherhood and selfhood, the only possibility for her is to commit suicide, which offers her the only way of eluding her children. 1 She seeks to be a complete person and “sees no way for a mother to keep the freedom of her soul […], except to dissolve her attachment to her children.” 2 Edna does not want to give up selfhood as for her “a woman’s

1 Kate Chopin, The Awakening, ed. Philip Smith, 1899 (New York: Dover, 1993) 115. All references are to this

edition.

2 Joyce Dyer, The Awakening, (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1993) 101.

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identity as a human being is more important and essential than the role as a mother.” 3 On one occasion she says to her friend Adèle Ratignolle: “I would give up the unessential; I would give my money, I would give my life for my children; but I wouldn’t give myself” (47). This hints at the impossibility to be mother as well as individual. In committing suicide Edna gives up everything and leaves nothing that could get destroyed.

The Creole society is described as “one big family” in which Edna does not quite feel at home. She seems integrated, but nevertheless is regarded as an outsider as she has Presbyterian roots. In the process of her awakening she abandons all her friends and family as they are all too conventional to understand her point of view.

Already at the beginning of the novel it becomes clear that Edna’s marriage with Léonce is “an accident” (18), as she was forced into the marriage by society. Edna wanted to leave her parents’ house, and marriage was the only possibility for a young woman to do so at that time. Also she was trying to flee from the world of illusions she had been living in so far, as Ed na had already as a child “lived her own small life all within herself” (13), and only married Léonce because he gave her the feeling of stability. Léonce, being a conventional Creole, treats Edna like “a valuable piece of personal property” (2) and does not regard her as a complete person with an own individuality. Even all the other women at Grand Isle claim Léonce to be “the best husband in the world” (7), and Edna has to admit that she does not know of any better, which shows that all the women take it for granted to be oppressed by their husbands and the society. The first time Edna realizes the true nature of her husband is after Léonce has come home from the club and wants to chat with Edna, who is already asleep. Léonce thinks it “very discouraging that his wife, who was the sole object of his existence, evinced so little interest in things which concerned him” (5), which makes it clear that Léonce understands his wife to be an object in his life. Under the pretext that one of the children is ill he wakes her up. He accuses her of neglecting to care for their children, which shows Léonce’s attitude towards the role of a woman, namely that childcare is the woman’s job. Edna then sits outside on the porch and cries, yet she does not know why. She only feels that something in her life is wrong. She wonders what it might be and comes to the conclusion that “she herself – her present self – was in some way different from the other self” (40) that she used to be. This is the first hint that Edna is developing an own selfhood and that she does not want to have to accept her role as wife and mother. On another occasion she has already developed a little strength: Again she is sitting outside at night when Léonce comes home and demands her to come inside. Edna for the first

3 Dyer, 100.

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time refuses to follow his will and clearly contradicts him. Never before has she neglected a demand from her husband, but now she does not submit and even tells him never to speak to her like that again. This is the start of a very important development in Edna’s inner self; she has begun to act independently. Edna is now aware of her wish; she wants to become independent of the economic and domestic domination of Léonce. After a quarrel about the dinner between the two of them Edna smashes a vase Lèonce was very fond of. Feeling that something in her life is going very wrong, she symbolically destroys the property of Léonce and rebels against his domination. To express her discontent about Léonce, she also tries to break her wedding ring, which stands for her relationship to him, but does not succeed. She has not developed enough courage yet for a big step like this. However, this courage, which Edna did not yet have at this point, she finds some time later back in New Orleans. She moves out of the house into a little cottage referred to as the “pigeon house”. This is probably the major step of her development to independence and a sign that she has gained an own individuality. Edna has made money at horse races and is now financially independent of Léonce. Therefore she also leaves her children. Not because she does not love them, but because she does not want to be possessed by them. She sees Léonce and the children as opponents to her independence. This independence is very important to her, as it symbolizes her independence from the suppressing society.

In committing suicide Edna also leaves Robert Lebrun, the only man she ever loved.

Edna only slowly realizes that she loves him, mainly because she misses him very much after he has gone to Mexico. By the time she confesses her love to him she has already developed selfhood, as she makes the first step by kissing him. As it is unimaginable for a woman to make the first move Edna shows that she does not follow social conventions anymore. It took Edna a long time to admit to herself that she was in love with Robert and by the time she has found this strength it is already too late. At the beginning of the novel it seems as if Robert were very different from the conventional Creole like Léonce, but although Edna thought that Robert understood her desire for selfhood, she now realizes that Robert is no different from the other members of society. After they both confess their love to each other, Robert tells Edna that he wants her husband to set her free. Like Léonce, Robert also treats Edna as a piece of property and as a person with no own will. She realizes that her love to Robert is only temporarily and sees no future.

Edna undergoes a double awakening “as an erotic being, and as an independent individual who craves to be an active subject rather that a passive object.” 4 By responding to the seductive

4 Seyersted 143.