Todo Tiene Su Como-Se-Llama

Kate Chopin's Long Walk Off a Short Pier

Welcome to a new episode of Late-Night Lit journals, or "Even More Fictional Women Wind Up Dead."

Seriously, as I wrote all these journals over the course of an evening, I couldn't help noticing a strange and disturbing trend. Daisy Miller, taking a hint from that immortal piece of chameleonic advice ("When in Rome . . ."), died of the aptly named Roman fever. Mother Shipton quit eating (a surefire recipe for starvation). Piney Woods and The Duchess (NOT LESBIANS) shuffled off the mortal coil in each others' arms. And . . . Well, heck. I'll be danged if Edna Pontellier didn't up and decide to cork off, too. At least she kept me guessing . . . waited until the last paragraph.

I waded through a rather lengthy and drawn-out story, fraught with spiritual growth and moral development (in the Romantic, not the Christian sense), only to have our jolly heroine strip naked and attempt to swim across the Gulf of Mexico. And yes, that does make the title of this post something of a pun. Anyway . . . Let's roll with a more conventional summary. Prepare to feel my pain.

The Awakening by Kate Chopin

The Pontelliers (Edna, her husband Leonce, and their two boys) spend every summer in a quaint little spot on the Louisiana coast with other people like themselves (wealthy natives of New Orleans). There are the Ratignolles, the Lebruns (who own the collection of cottages), Mademoiselle Reisz, and . . . so forth. For Edna Pontellier, though, this summer is different. She is cultivating a pleasant friendship with young Robert Lebrun, who has latched himself onto a different married woman every summer since he was but a lad.

Edna's husband is affectionate but distracted. He loves her in his own way, but he takes her for granted. His weeks are spent conducting his business in New Orleans, visiting his family only on the weekends. Large portions of his visits are spent in the local pool hall. Edna herself, leaving her children in the care of their nurse, spends her days bathing in the sea with Robert or working at her hobby (sketching and painting and such). Yes, you should already know where this is going.

And, almost before they have time to notice what is going on, she and Robert suddenly find themselves dangerously close to the awkward and completely unspoken position of being more than just friends. Not long after this comes an evening of general merriment among the guests. During a lull in the entertainment, Robert entreats Mademoiselle Reisz to play for Mrs. Pontellier. Edna is enraptured by the music, and the performance is quickly followed by a sojourn to the beach by all parties for a moonlight swim.

Edna has been attempting to learn how to swim all summer, but thus far has been too afraid to really swim alone. On this night, however, something about the music and the moon and the spirit within her prompts her to strike out with a firm stroke. Caught up in the exhiliration of swimming she goes out farther than she means to and is frightened, but has no trouble returning to shore. Her husband pooh-poohs her small fright, and Robert ends up escorting her back to the cottages. They converse, and then he leaves her and she rests outside while waiting for her husband to return.

Something new has awoken inside of her, and when her husband returns she defies his request that she enter the house, asserting that she will stay outside all night. A small spat erupts, and he stays outside smoking cigars and drinking wine until she gets sleepy and goes to bed. But she is a different person. She is woman, hear her roar . . . etc.

And, now that we have reached the title character of this meandering tale, the rest should be easy. Just as Edna feels she has reached an understanding with Robert, he decides that now would be a really good time to go to Mexico (a plan he has contemplated for years). Feeling completely adrift and forlorn, Edna mucks about for the rest of the summer and then returns to New Orleans. Back home again she begins to shirk her duties as hostess, mother, and housekeeper. She never receives visitors, preferring instead to wander the city without telling anyone where she is going, or retiring to her attic studio to paint whatever strikes her fancy.

Her husband, worried, consults the family doctor, who instructs to let the matter be. He takes the advice, even in the face of some harsh words from his visiting father-in-law (an old Confederate colonel) when Edna decides not to attend her sister's wedding in Kentucky. Not long after this, Leonce leaves on an extended business trip to New York and the two sons are sent to visit their grandmother.

Edna, missing Robert, who enquires about her through Mademoiselle Reisz but never writes her himself, wanders languidly into the arms of the dandy Alcee Arobin. An affair ensues. Languidly. She feels she has cheated on . . . Robert. Edna decides to move into a small house around the block from hers, tired of living in Leonce's abode. She celebrates the move with a disastrous dinner party which reminds her of Robert.

Robert returns and she meets him purely by chance while waiting for Mademoiselle Reisz to return to her rooms. Things are awkward between them at first, but after several days they meet by chance again and the truth comes out. Robert is in love with her, but will not be dishonorable while she is married. That was the reason for his trip to Mexico, and again the reason for his avoiding, even though a momentary lapse in his judgment brought him back to New Orleans.

She convinces him that they should be together, but just as they are about to be, Edna receives an urgent summons from Madame Ratignolle, who is about to give birth to a baby and requires emotional support. Robert promises to wait, and Edna goes. Madame Ratignolle entreats her repeatedly to "think of the children" and the family doctor, walking her home, asks her to come talk to him. She re-enters her house to find Robert gone, leaving behind a note saying he has decided to do the honorable thing in not committing adultery. She responds by returning unannounced to the cottages where she spent the summer before and proceeding in the Whitman-ian fashion outlined above. The end.

I'm sorry if that's a bit sketchy, but for a book where nothing really actually happened, there was a lot of random character development going on. Ain't that always the way? Hopefully I still have a bit left in me for the analysis.

This book is full of symbolism, and that is what interested me the most. Edna's awakening as a woman, fully in charge of herself, comes as she learns to swim alone for the first time. Her death in the ocean is heralded by the plummet into the water of a bird with a broken wing. Arobin, as they begin to become intimate, bares a saber wound on his wrist for her to examine and she becomes sick. Later, Robert accuses her of being cruel, saying it is as though she wishes him to show her a wound just so she can have the fun of looking at it.

What, precisely, does all this mean? Well, it would seem to indicate that women ought to cast of the shackles the chain them to husbands, children, and obligations in general, and live in whatever manner pleases them best. There are simply too many conscious, biting asides regarding the plight of women for this not to be true. However, the tragic ending of the affair does not seem to reinforce the message very strongly, somehow.

Maybe I'm just tired, but I just don't have a lot of patience with the situation in general. This should not be nearly so difficult. Robert shouldn't be making passes at married women as a matter of course. Edna and Leonce shouldn't be allowing him to indulge his fancy. Edna should care about her children and home and husband . . . Not that she must neglect everything else. It is a difficult position that I am analyzing from, as I will by default have very little credibility if I seem to be arguing that a woman's place is in the home.

I don't particularly believe that. I mostly leave that question up to the woman, since I'm not one. However, it seems to me that once the woman has answered the question for herself, she oughtn't to be swapping canoes midstream (as it were) and leaving everyone in the lurch. Her husband's behavior in the story certainly does not deserve anyone's approval, but then, we are not meant to sympathize with him. We are meant to sympathize with Edna Pontellier, and I simply can't do that at every point in the story. I feel sorry that she has begun the novel in a bad position, and proceeds to get herself into several more throughout, but after all, she makes all of her own choices.

And maybe that's the point right there. Right or wrong, choose for yourself. I find that, at least, a good deal easier to put up with, in spite of the awful potential the philosophy possesses. Free will cannot be denied, regardless of the consequences.

Posted by Jared at February 22, 2005 04:30 AM | TrackBack