Kate Chopin - The Awakening Essay

Kate Chopin - The Awakening Essay

The Curse of Knowledge

Becoming "awakened" is not always a blessing, but at times can be a curse.   This is clearly illustrated in The Awakening, where Kate Chopin tells the story of Edna Pontellier, a woman who wonders if there is more to life, as she begins to question her role as a housewife and mother.   Edna's journey for independence causes her to become more aware of self, as Chopin writes "…Mrs. Pontellier was beginning to realize her position in the universe…" (25). This new knowledge turns out to be more than she can bear, as Edna is unable to free herself of society's restrictions, which ultimately results in her own demise.
During the family summer vacation on Grand Isle, something begins to change within Edna.   After a disagreement with her husband, she finds herself crying, unsure of the reason, only that she felt "[an] indescribable oppression, which seemed to generate in some unfamiliar part of her consciousness…" (14).   While swimming, Edna continues to push the boundaries of being a woman, who is under her husband's authority, to one who is in control "…as if some power of significant import has been given to her to control the working of her body and soul" (47).   As she swims further and further out, she revels in the freedom she feels "…she seemed to be reaching out for the unlimited in which to lose herself" (48).   However her adulation over her new found freedom fades as "a quick vision of death smote her soul" and she returns to land (48).   Edna is overtaken by "a thousand emotions [that] swept through [her] and she wonders if she will "ever be stirred again…" (49). This flood of emotions causes Edna to become "stubborn and resistant" so she refuses Leonce's commands to come to bed, and stays in the hammock (53).

As the summer continues, her disillusionment grows as "Edna [begins] to feel like one who awakens gradually out of a delicious, grotesque, impossible dream, to feel again the realities pressing into her soul" (53)....