The Awakening

Rating:
Summary: The Awakening-An excellent choice
Review: The Awakening is indeed one of the best books I have ever read. Kate Chopin did a wonderful job of presenting Edna Pontellier, the main character, as a woman who struggles in a society where women are the property of men. Her love for art and music enabled her to gain a form of independence that only she and an older lady named Mademoiselle Reisz can understand. Mademoiselle Reisz is not necessarily an attractive woman, but she is the kind of idol that Edna adores. Reisz was very knowledgeable in both music and art. Having never been married and have children, Reisz was in independent woman making a living all by herself. Edna, coming from a family of Presbyterians, purposely married a Catholic named Leonce Pontellier to get back at her father, The Colonel, and Margaret, her older sister. Edna constantly faces many awakenings throughout her life as she struggles for independence from control of men. She defies her husband and lets him know that she is not his property. This leads to a conflict between the two. Leonce believes that Edna is not a good mother and cares little for both her children and him [Leonce]. Edna, on the other hand, believes that it is Leonce who cares little for his family and more about his wealth, property, and popularity. As Edna spends more time with Robert, her attitude towards Leonce begins to get stranger and stranger. This enabled Chopin to introduce a middleman between the Edna and Leonce; a physician named Doctor Mandelet. Mandelet met with the two on separate occasions and formulates a diagnosis to cure Edna from such strange behavior. Days before Leonce leaves for a business trip, Edna began having feelings for a young carefree man named Robert Lebrun. There is a hidden love between the two. They do not admit to each other's love, but can sense it through their emotional side. Trying to avoid falling in love with a married woman, Robert leaves town and heads for Mexico, trying to clear his head from thinking about Edna. Robert, While Robert is away, Edna begins to feel an even stronger love for Robert. Kate Chopin developed a wonderful plot in which the story constantly circles around Edna. While Edna has Robert on her mind, the author did an incredibly brilliant choice by introducing another character by the name of Alcee Robin. Alcee enjoys making conquests of married women and eventually goes for Edna. After meeting Alcee through the horseracing games, Edna begins to get intimate with Alcee. Not feeling enough independence from her husband Leonce, Edna decides to move into a tiny birdcage-like house where she buys all the necessities to make a decent living with the money she made from winning races. The climax began to increase when Robert finally came back from Mexico. This is where Edna began playing mind-games with Robert by seeing him less and less. Days later, Edna decided to go to the beach to take a stroll along the coast. Having a deep sensation for swimming, she undressed herself and slowly began swimming away from the shore. She regards her sons as the chain that binds her to a form of slavery that she detested. Moments later after extreme exhaustion, Edna drowns and dies. Much credit to Kate Chopin for writing such an excellent book!

Rating:
Summary: A Womens Independence
Review: The Awaking, by Kate Chopin was a very good book to read if you ever had any time in your life, you felt insecure about yourself. I found this book and the characters very interesting. There are traits about Mr. and Mrs. Pontellier I enjoyed, but at the same time, they lack things as well. Edna was a very individual character that wanted to feel individual for her own needs. Edna was admirable in her individuality and desire for independence, but in the same respect, her independence can be a bit selfish at the cost of her children. Her children should have been her first priority, and then her search for individuality. As for Mr. Pontellier, I believe that he truly does love Edna, but there are times when he does not treat her as if he loves her. " . . . looking at his wife as one looks at a valuable piece of property." (Pg. 2) Even though he was a rich man in those times he should have shown more respect for his wife, so she didn't feel as if she needed find her own path to follow. This was an excellent book for anybody to read, but I thought that the author could have thought of a better ending. If there was anything, wrong with this book it had to be that the author seemed to just want to finish the book. It really just seemed as though the book came to an abrupt end. I would recommend this book to anyone who wanted to learn more about themselves as a whole.

Rating:
Summary: Joy of Life and Death
Review: "The Awakening" by Kate Chopin is a great book. It deals with a woman who is confused about the way her life is going. She doesn't realize it but she is an extremely strong woman. She has to deal with the feelings she has for her husband and children and also for another man. She doesn't want to be tied down. She loves her family and regrets that she cannot give herself completely. A part of her awakening comes when she decides to swim in the ocean by herself. She has the feeling of pure joy and a certain amount of sensual pleasure as she swims farther and farther into the ocean. She begins to wonder why she had never done this before because it is a pleausre that is so enjoyable. In the end she gives herself back to the ocean. She returns to a place where she feels an unexplained joy of life and death.

Rating:
Summary: Fragmented at first, but when it falls into place...
Review: Wow! This book was assigned for our sophmore class as a companion to Jane Eyre, which we had just finished. The class as a whole liked Jane Eyre because not only is it brimming with metaphors, it is also entertaining. I eagerly started The Awakening anticipating a vivid, inviting story; however, the story was far from entertaining. The plot seemed contrived and the charecters, exaggerated. After finishing the book though, I understood why the book was my teachers favorite. I understood why I felt the characters to be contrived; it was because I didn't want to believe that the story was true. I didn't want to believe that the protagonist's plight was imaginable. The pieces started to fit, and I realized what a tour de force the book was. This was the same reason that critics lambasted the book in its initial release, and even forced Chopin to repudiate her book. They saw it as a personal attack on society and therefore themselves (which it is). They didn't want to believe, much like I did... But once you see....

Rating:
Summary: Restrictions
Review: Kate Chopin's "The Awakening" is a spectacular novel, which I encourage all women to read. This novel deals with all the trials and tribulations of life in a society with many restrictions. I truly believe that Kate Chopin was way before her time. She deals with women and the ways they are suppressed by the social norms of society. Women are expected to place their desires for love, sex, and their need to be free in the backs of their minds. Kate Chopin breaks all of these laws, and is excellent at teaching women that they are individuals. Women are mixed individuals with many emotions. It is possible to love your family and at the same time not be happy. Anyone at anytime can find themselves and should not have to restrict their happiness. This is what happens to the main character Enda Pontellier in "The Awakening". The only problem is, when she finds her true self, society expects her to deny it. After reading this book I felt that I went trough the awakening with her. You can almost feel her pain for the need to be loved, in the way, which she truly deserved. Kate does this through her excellent display of symbolism.

Rating:
Summary: A Strong Woman for her time
Review: Kate Chopin's The Awakening has so much to offer. It is one of the most exposing and intricate books that I have ever read. Considering the time period in which Chopin wrote the book makes the storyline even greater. It is revolutionary in the way that Edna doesn't succumb to her environment, but rather takes her own stand and chooses her own path. I liked this novel a lot, and the way it was put together. The author was very tactful in the way she related the characters to each other. Though the actual feelings of the characters were never revealed, we always knew what state of mind everyone was in because of their actions. The story was in third person and we rarely heard dialogue from the characters so the story was built on paper by the character's actions. However, I formulated in my mind all of the feelings of the characters based on these actions. It was like there were two separate stories going on, the literal one and the emotional one. All in all, it made you think a little more in that you had to fill in the blanks much like a Hemingway novel. So why is this story so revolutionary? Edna is one of the few women who are glorified in their time in literature. She knows what she wants and she sticks by it. Though some may call her selfish, she is so overwhelmed with her responsibilities versus what she really wanted, that she does what she thinks she needs to do in the end. In our day and age, she probably would have had more options, but in hers, she does not. Her story is quite similar to both Medea in Euripides' Medea and Nora in Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House. If you like either one of these stories, you will probably also like The Awakening.

Rating:
Summary: Feminism at Best
Review: Kate Chopin's "The Awakening" portray's strength and feminism at its greatest. The book shows the struggles of a woman trying to make it in a world set with standards. She finds it hard to grow and expand her happiness and destiny in life. After everything she puts her family through, she manages to think of the wellness of her soul and mind. She breaks off from her family, friends, and society enabling herself to feel completly free. Chopin challenges society's standards through an imprisoned woman in her own world. The struggles the character faces depicts strength and courage from influential people and standards. It shows a beautiful transition of servitude to tranquillity. "The Awakening", also, opened doors for feminsim and women's rights. It set a mental precedent into society's conscience. "Awakening" is one of the greatest works that inspires people to break away from imprisonment of society's principles.

Rating:
Summary: Finally!!
Review: This book is amazing. The language is beautiful and the story is gripping. It is a must read if you've ever been depressed, and even if you haven't. It's an incredibly uplifting story that left me breathless at the end of it, and all I could do was flip to the beginning and start reading again.

Rating:
Summary: The Awakening [ABRIDGED]
Review: Although Chopin's masterpiece can be life altering when the complete text is read, I found the abridgement on audio to be quite disappointing. Liza Ross's affectation of Edna Pontellier's journey through her awakening makes Edna seem whimsical and weak. The abridgement makes too many cuts which are essential to understanding Edna's break from her husband and from society's standards at the time of the novella's occurrence. Other characters also seem trite and their actions come across as incomprehensible.

Robert Lebrun is certainly not worthy of Edna's affections throughout the course of the abridgement. He is much more seductive and enticing in the complete story. The same holds true for Madomoiselle Reisz. The two characters are essential to internalizing Edna's plight and understanding her ultimate fate.

I have listened to many audio abridgements. In this case, the lack of story does a disservice to the listener's understanding of Napoleonic Law in Louisiana at the turn of the century. It is easy to listen to this rendering not realizing that Edna and all of her personal effects are actually Leonce's property.

My advice, read the book if you truly want to appreciate the mastery of the work that made Chopin give up writing.

Rating:
Summary: Finding Individualism
Review: "For the first time she recognized anew the symptoms of infatuation which she felt incipiently as a child, as a girl in her earliest 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, that she had been denied that which her impassioned, newly awakened being demanded" (XV)

Kate Chopin created a work on individualism, on self; Self is what is being awakened, it is the solitary soul. In Chopin's time there were many such Ednas, women struggling to become something more significant than a prized possession but not knowing how. Creative expression through brush or pen was held as little more than another form of capricious coquetry.

The development of Edna's character is tragic. Edna acknowledges her pull toward individualism, she knows it to be true and right. But Edna is only just beginning to understand and doesn't know where to go with it. She discovers there is no place for her to go, and so chooses death over conformity. I'm certain Chopin's message was to illustrate individuality and worth separate from spouse, family, religion, etc., as well as to demand that self-worth and individuality be recognized before entering 'the social fabric of connectedness and sustain the dream and the illusion.' Edna awoke in a cage with no escape, except one. She was buried in a sea of right and wrong, both within herself and without. Edna was eventually overcome by the impetus of her awakening: sexuality. But because she became aware, awakened, did not necessarily imply that she would act out on her feelings. Her illusion of Robert grew in his absence. Edna became certain of her need to consummate. She was lost. What could have been a jumping off point into self and growth and giving, instead became a dash for freedom. Freedom was first Robert and then no one.

The early 20th century critics' comments were fascinating. Of special note was John May's essay on Chopin's masterful use of textile imagery. Chopin became an artist on sensuality. I also admired Ringe's notes on symbolism: The Lady in Black who was lost in God combined with the couple lost in love, contrasted to Edna who never could achieve loss of self in love for another -- this symbolism is consistent throughout. George Arms makes a strong case that the children represented a stable society and unbroken home. Edna turns to the children time and again in her confusion of self.

Larzer Ziff noted well how Chopin rejected 'family' as the equivalent of feminine self-fulfillment -- it is a way to emphasize the equal worth of self in all people not just men... part of the awakening process.

I disagreed with Spangler, that Edna's suicide diminished her character. Suicide was an inevitable end for the person struggling to recognize her significance independent to all others, ...and losing. Edna's displays of strength and self that Spangler admired so much, I saw as efforts at understanding. The fact the Edna almost understood but kept slipping made her slide all the more tragic.

Wolff's Freudian analysis is well thought out and deep -- maybe too deep. Edna's attempt at fusion seemed more a result of her confusion at being adrift. Though I loved the analogy of a newborn with the birth of a soul.

In all, one must first know themselves as a solitary soul, and then join the connectedness of those around them.