The Awakening by Kate Chopin

- Blog Post #3 - Due September 30, 2016:

- Using a bullet point style list, identify text to support each major theme as noted in the calendar. There should be a minimum of TWO direct quotes per theme. Then, explain how this text supports the noted theme. This question should be answered in 3rd person limited point of view with direct quotes cited properly in MLA format.

- Personal reflection focus - could this have ended any other way for Edna Pontellier? Consider your posts throughout the novel on this blog where you discussed characterization, setting, historical context, and society. Use evidence from the text to support your answer. This may be written in narrative style using 1st person point of view. Text should stil be cited appropriately.

Kyle Watts

Mrs. McGowan

ENG III

29 September 2016

Not to Play

• Freedom
• 1. “...but whatever came, she had resolved never again to belong to another than herself,” (106 Chopin). This sort of selfishness is prevalent throughout the entire novella. Edna fights the entire novel with an instinct she doesn’t understand. When she does, she doesn’t cage the elephant, instead lets it trample every facet of her life. If this primal instinct is viewed as a foil to Edna’s previous life, and therefore its own character, then one might interpret this as freedom for this entity and Edna indulges in it tragically.
• 2. “She was becoming herself and daily casting aside that fictitious self which we assume like a garment with which to appear before the world,” (57 Chopin). Edna was becoming an anomaly in society, as she became closer to the change she sought. This section also foreshadows the ending of the novel, where Edna swims her last naked, beholden literally only to herself and the torpid feelings within her.
• Sexism
• 1. “The bird that would soar above the level plain of tradition and prejudice must have strong wings. It is a bad spectacle to see the weaklings bruised, exhausted, fluttering back to earth,” (83 Chopin). Everything contemporaneous told Edna that the undiscovered land was so for a purpose. Edna, Leonce, and those alone the gnaw of freedom figured her flight brief and would before long crash down and entropy back into the society. In these days, women weren’t meant to soar, they were meant to be content and patient. The concept of a woman being independent in thought was foreign to the people of nineteenth century New Orleans.
• 2. ““I would give up the unessential; I would give up my money, I would give up my life for my children; but I wouldn't give myself. I can't make it more clear; it's only something I am beginning to comprehend, which is revealing itself to me,” (97 Chopin). These thoughts are one that go through any parent, the distorted hum of personal desire that fades with children but chides, long as the day. What elevates it to an example of sexism is that a woman is cornered with such things to consider before deciding they might live for their true selves. Especially in this time period when it wasn’t so much a moral obligation on part of the female, but a societal expectation set by the majority.
• Search for Self
• 1. ““Even as a child she had lived her own small life within herself. At a very early period she had apprehended instinctively the dual life - that outward existence which conforms, the inward life which questions,” (88 Chopin). Edna finds this inward existence in her late twenties, and is child enough to stoke the fiber again. Rather than adhering to the expectation of society, she decides it better to search for herself through introspection.
• 2. ““She turned her face seaward to gather in an impression of space and solitude, which the vast expanse of water, meeting and melting with the moonlit sky, conveyed to her excited fancy. As she swam she seemed to be reaching out for the unlimited in which to lose herself,” (28 Chopin). The “excited fancy” would be the introspection she is experiencing once again. The sea was used as a metaphor for the rush the awakening provided; a rush that could not be stopped. This is also foreshadowing the ending where Edna, rather than swimming back to the shore from expectation, obligation, or some hope that there was a life for her on the shore, continues on giving herself completely to the rapid pull.
• Public vs. Private Life
• 1. ““Goodbye -- Because I love you.” (116 Chopin). This one line proves the obstructions of public life set on the private one. Although the intentions for Robert leaving aren’t as clear as the note leads on, it tells of a society that expects conformity and custom will bend those to its will. The two forces cannot intertwine because to involve public life into the private life negates either one or the other. Meaning, for something private to become known it isn’t private anymore and vice versa.
• 2. “The city atmosphere certainly has improved her. Some way she doesn't seem like the same woman,” (61 Chopin). This is a conversation between the Lebruns and it shows the duality of private and public life. To those around her, she is flaming and inside she is too. But in private, when reality sinks skulls into her head, the dread and vulnerability come out. They never truly manifest in public life, because she never tells anyone of the “always” or “conformal” class. At least, not in public. So it furthers the agenda the agony of saturated isolation and outward boredom.

Personal Reflection

I see Edna as a real person, ergo, I don’t like her. Too easy is it to get so caught up in yourself that you forget what it’s doing to everyone else around you. But then you think “when am I gonna throw ME a bone? When is it my time to be angry, passionate, or selfish?” And we should, not only because we will (so why demonize it) but because it’s genuine. Some of the greatest people were those who decided their life meant a bit more to them then anything else, and they took a chance. Unfortunately for Edna, she was lost in a stagnation where nothing seemed to move and everything seemed of the same color palette. “It took Victor some time to comprehend that she had come in Beaudelet’s lugger, that she had come alone, and for no purpose but to rest,” (114 Chopin). It’s also described that she looks to be in tatters. I think, Edna’s mechanical walk to the beach and retreat to the only foxhole left in her life, was evidence that the end had come for her. She exclaimed, “but I wouldn’t give myself,” (97 Chopin). At the end of the novel, the only true hope for a sane life is by giving that self up, and rather than doing that, she gives herself to it. One final act of decision in a life that puppeted loose coils that knotted. She was the Alexander to her Gordian Knot. The majority of me is sad for Edna, another portion respects her. “...and the thought of him would melt out of her existence, leaving her alone,” (115 Chopin). What Edna wanted for so long in the novel was the crux that cleared suicide as the only escape. Minding all the facts and resentments of people, I don’t think Edna nor Kate Chopin viewed the end as suicidal to either mind. In fact, the final scene is one connected with birth, to finish her awakening. I think Chopin consciously decided to leave Edna’s fate implied rather than every saying “suicide” because to Edna it wasn’t suicide. It was a refusal to compromise and her giving herself to the ocean was giving in to herself, or the mammalian instinct if you interpret that as a sort of antagonist. There is a reason Kate Chopin references the ocean so much, and how vast it is compared to Grand Isle Conformity. The sea could have swallowed that narrow land easily as it did Edna. A patriarchal society, her self-imposed love quadrilateral, jealousy, solitude, dead ends, and a need to yourself are what finished Edna. For Edna, the only way to win was not to play anymore.

Blog Post # 2 - Due September 9, 2016:
 - Essential question focus: What words or phrases were unique to the text and how did they contribute to the overall understanding of the novella? This question should be answered in 3rd person limited point of view with direct6 quotes cited properly in MLA format.
- Personal Reflection Focus - Select on piece of evidence from the text and explain why you found this to be a particularly well-written sentence (or paragraph) and then explain how it impacted you directly as a reader and/or connected to your life in a way that develops your own "sense of self."

Kyle Watts                                     

Mrs. McGowan

ENG III

9 September 2016

“Words are wind” -Literally every A Song of Ice and Fire Book

    Said George RR. Martin, even though he’s spent near on six years writing The Winds of Winter. Nevertheless, there’s a power in words, or something at least. Why would it have been developed otherwise? Like anything else it was developed necessarily and we’ve done astonishing things with the idea. All things from literary classics to job interview callbacks ride on proper word choice. Be it pandering or unscrupulously gut wrenching. Kate Chopin uses some of the English language’s greatest strengths, but kind of fly’s off the pinwheel so to speak, by using words that send a reader to a dictionary instead of keeping them inside hers.

    For example, take, ““For the first time, she recognized the symptoms of infatuation which she had felt incipiently as a child, as a girl in her early teens, and later as a young woman. The recognition did not lessen the reality, the poignancy of the revelation by any suggestion or promise of instability. The past was nothing to her; offered no lesson which she was willing to heed. The future was a mystery which she never attempted to penetrate. The present alone was significant; was hers, to torture her as it was doing then with the biting conviction that she had lost that which she had held, she had been denied that which her impassioned, newly awakened being demanded.” (Chopin 45). Yeah that’s pretty and everything, but you can’t hang clothes on pretty. But what you can hang them on is a clothesline! The point being, why spend so much time avoiding the clothesline, tempting the audience to throw your book out a window? Chopin should have gotten to the point, the real point, economize her syllables, and tell the sickening hollow of a woman who’s running out of time. The english language is beautiful in its density. Stark words carry interpretation, and keep the reader engaged. Sign of the times, but you could say the same of many classics, who refuse to get to the point, but drone on and on telling the most primeval emotions through clauses, syllables, and their dictionary. Be pithy and regard that someone’s actually going to have to read this.

    A piece that fills the mind through subtlety, would have to be, “As Edna waited for her husband she sang low a little song that Robert had sung as they crossed the bay. It began with ‘Ah! Si tu savais,’ and every verse ended with ‘si tu savais.’ Robert’s voice was not pretentious. It was musical and true. The voice, the notes, the whole refrain haunted her memory.” (Chopin 40). Reading the actively learn version, it doesn’t say that “Ah! Si tu savais” means “Ah! If you only knew.” That gives the whole song more meaning and depth, with a beautiful subtlety. It makes the reader wonder, was Robert trying to get in her head subliminally? How it mirrors both Robert and Edna’s situations. How Edna has basically been saying “if you only knew the thoughts I have” for the entirety of the novella? That was a gorgeous method of storytelling that shows Chopin at her best. It just shows how far Chopin could go to insert dubious assertions about her characters and their methods and their goals.

Personal Reflection

    It may be a bit of a cheat, but I think that my previous quote I chose is well written. “As Edna waited for her husband she sang low a little song that Robert had sung as they crossed the bay. It began with ‘Ah! Si tu savais,’ and every verse ended with ‘si tu savais.’ Robert’s voice was not pretentious. It was musical and true. The voice, the notes, the whole refrain haunted her memory.” It’s like in Saving Private Ryan, when the “German” soldiers the two Americans shot when they were surrendering were shouting “please don’t shoot me, I am not German, I am Czech, I didn’t kill anyone!” Spielberg never subtitled that to give the audience a sort of deference towards the scene. He was showing that the Allies did savage things during the war as well. Those who dig deeper find out the layered tragedy to the scene. We find out that those two surrendering soldiers were prisoners forced to fight for the Germans. I think Robert’s singing was seminal, and only adds to his covert methods of getting in Edna’s head. Whether or not they are intentional is a matter of interpretation, however, I respect the scene all the more because Chopin doesn’t tell you that, at least not on the Actively Learn version. The novel has a footnote about it that I think cheapens the effect. Googling it and having that “aha!” moment was immensely satisfying and appealed to Chopin’s command of the English and French languages. The whole concept of Robert haunting Edna’s mind really touched me because I’ve been there. And I know what it’s like to know that it can never be. To literally be in the space between spaces. It’s cruel and can make you callous to the love as a whole. Of course, I have the luxury of being able to be exactly who I want to be, so I don’t have the same pent up aggression as Edna, but the themes of obsession and desire are universal.

Blog Post #1 – Due September 2, 2016:
• Essential question focus – how is Edna Pontellier struggling with her sense of self? Identify evidence from the text in characterization, plot, and setting that develop this idea in the novella? Do not neglect the impact of other characters, historical context, or society expectations on her identity. Both questions should be answered in 3rd person limited point of view with direct quotes cited properly in MLA format. 
• Personal reflection focus – What do you believe to be the most critical element in the novel thus far? Paraphrase text to support your answer. This may be written in narrative style using 1st person point of view. Paraphrased text should still be cited appropriately. 
Kyle Watts

Mrs. McGowan

ENG III

31 August 2016

Edna Pontellier and Herself

People often muse on the concept that we could have been different. Could have not hurt this person or that; could have not had seconds. Whether about wasted time or a broader waistline, the concept that time heals all wounds is lost. And it is assumed that the only way to rekindle, is through massive re-invention. Edna Pontellier discovered the threads that puppeted her through her life and shipped them. Admittedly with a dull pair of scissors, as she is hesitant to vouch for this newfound humanity.

The story is full of Edna revelling on the possibilities of her encroaching freedom. The way she describes the setting of Grande Terre at Robert’s mention of stealing away to it, is indicative of the tug of war on her heart strings. “She gazed away toward Grande Terre and thought she would like to be alone there with Robert, in the sun listening to the ocean’s roar and watching the slimy lizards writhe in and out among the ruins of the old fort.” (Chopin 34). There is the life that she really wants, her heart wants, where she can be free and independent of the expectations of society. Those expectations were ridiculously strict on women in 1899, when the novella was written. The quote, “listening to the ocean’s roar” is symbolic for the tumultuous roar inside of her as she measures the conservative expectations around her. This is not the first time that the sea has been used as an allegory to the bated life in which Edna lives.

The second point of Edna’s struggle is seen in plot, that is, the scene in the church.”A feeling of oppression and drowsiness overcame Edna during the service. Her head began to ache, and the lights on the altar swayed before her eyes. Another time she might have made an effort to regain her composure; but her one thought was to quit the stifling atmosphere and reach the open air.” (Chopin 35). Early American culture was obsessed with the righteousness behind a pulpit, and though they men and women were not equals in ministry, they were expected to present themselves promptly all the same. Edna says it herself in a previous chapter that from the time she had a notion to her role in their society to the reflection with Madame Ratignolle on the beach, she had lived a life divine by all definitions. She references a time when she was a little girl in a tall grass field, dancing and dashing through the green sea, uninterested in whatever lay on the other side. This is called living for the moment, and she is finding that the best way to live perhaps is true to oneself not for the designs of another, that other being her blind husband Leonce and the rest of her conservative neighborhood. Robert represents a more moderate individual, though he too is bound to the thoughts about women and society so popular in his day. His treatment of Mariequita are evidence of that.

Finally, characteristics of Edna have changed as she has gone through her “awakening.” “‘How many years have I slept?’ she inquired. ‘The whole island seems changed. A new race of beings have sprung up, leaving only you and me as past relics. How many ages ago did Madame Antoine and Tonie die? And where did our people from Grand Isle disappear from the Earth?’” (Chopin 37-38). This brief exchange shows that she longs for a place far away in time and space from the one she has to exist in. Existential oscillation from meager existence to deeply inhaling life like it were being dragged out of you by a vacuum. However, this quote also subtly references the title of the story and the entire point of it. “How many years have I slept,” is her wondering why she waited so long to indulge in individualism. Why she “slept” so indifferently to a society that had no interest in her piece of mind? Again, this is a staunchly Christian village in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana, very few were at the vanguard for social justice. Perhaps Edna wished the past decades of her life were all a dream, and this time she could do it with all the wisdom she gathered these past few days.

Edna’s inner turmoil for independence and meaning is something humans face every day. The moralist will say, we make our own meaning, and that’s okay. The Nihilist will tell you, there is no meaning, enjoy this moment, in all it’s heartbreak and joy. The Christian will tell you that there is a grand prize waiting for you after you shut your eyes for the last time. The broken will seek to mend. Edna is somewhere in between, shifting more to indulgent, morality, and decency with each turn of the page. 

Personal Reflection

The Awakening is about feminism true, but I think it's more about individualism. I see Edna breaking the bonds of contemporary society. It's about an individual realizing there is something more beyond the sand banks of her home. It's no coincidence that the story takes place on an island. At least, it isn't one to me. I see the setting as a metaphor; Edna is trapped on an island surrounded by victorious ocean. Therefore, the most important part of The Awakening, is not that Edna is a woman, but she is a human being. And all human beings deserve to be enraptured. I also think she captures the inherit selfishness of us. She half wished the world she knew was gone and that one hundred years had passed. That she could try again, because she had been "asleep" her whole life. I feel for Edna, as she's like an insect trapped in the amber of time. I sometimes feel for myself and those around me, and wonder if we're on the wrong side of history, if we're really doing the right thing. I believe the book also indirectly confronts issues of right and wrong, absence and neglection. Consider how little mind Edna pays for her kids. She even says, it's somewhat of a forced relationship, where she will force them to sit down and spend time with her and talk. Her children are really the only ones suffering from her increased solidarity and inward focus. Another important asset to the themes of discovery are Chopin's constant use of symbols. Normally, I think symbols are quite trite when over used, but Chopin instead continues to allude to the same ones rather than sticking dozens of them in the story. To me, a symbol loses its potency when every line is trying to push the envelope. One book that I think takes symbolism to a whole new level is Slaughter-House Five, by Kurt Vonnegut. Who would've thought to compare the shattered dimensions of the human mind after the Dresden Massacre to an ancient race of omniscient beings known as Tralfamadorians? Kate Chopin does it a bit differently, by alluding to the ocean several times, giving multiple meanings to its representation, or at least, facilitating that sort of thought for the reader. My only hope for the remainder of the novel is that Kate Chopin doesn't forget to make Edna human. Up to this point, she has some resignation to her broadening horizon. I don't want her to radically change character in the latter half and spend the rest winking at the reader with a half smirk of "look at me being all independent and progressive, isn't it great to relinquish responsibility to my children as I become a matrix of all feminine thought?" She's done great making Edna a believable protagonist, I just hope is follows throughout.