Léonce Pontellier, the husband of Edna Pontellier in The Awakening of Kate Chopin, becomes very disturbed when his wife, in the space of a few months, suddenly abandons all her responsibilities . After she admits that she "let things go," he angrily asks, "because of what?" Edna is unable to provide a definitive answer and says, “Oh! I don't know. Let me come; you disturb me” (108). The uncertainty she expresses arises from the ambiguous nature of the transformation she has undergone. It is easy to read Edna's transformation in strictly negative terms - as a move away from the repressive expectations of her husband and society "or in strictly positive terms" as a movement towards the love and sensuality she finds in the summer resort of Grand Isle. . Although both of these movements exist in Edna's story, focusing on one aspect closes the reader to the ambiguity that seems to be at the very center of Edna's awakening. Edna cannot define the nature of her awakening to her husband because it is not a single-edged discovery; she comes to understand both what is not in her current situation and what is another situation. Furthermore, the sensuality to which she has been awakened is not simply the masculine or feminine sexuality that she was previously accustomed to, but rather the sensuality that results from the fusion of masculine and feminine. The book's most striking symbol, "the ocean to which she finally abandons herself," does not embody one aspect of her awakening, but rather the multitude of contradictory meanings she discovers. Only once we understand the ambiguity of this central symbol can we read the end of the novel as a climax and an extension of the novel's themes, and the novel will find a coherence missing in a one-sided interpretation of the Edna's awakening. Say no to plagiarism. . Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay A number of feminist critiques focus on the entrapment Edna feels in her marital situation. Edna realizes that “all her life she has been accustomed to harboring thoughts and emotions that were never expressed. They had never taken the form of struggles” (96). In the novel, the struggle begins against the demands of her husband and children. As she walks into the ocean at the end of the novel to escape her life, she reflects that "they need not have thought they could possess her, body and soul" (176). Emily Toth states that “escape from confinement is the dominant theme of The Awakening” (242). The primary means of this emotional confinement is the societal expectation, inherited from the early American Republican era, that “the best way for a married woman to make her point is to give in sometimes.” Jan Lewis says that in early America. “it was the woman who had to bend” (712). This remained true at mid-century when William Alcott declared that "the balance of concessions lies with the woman." Whether the husband concedes or not, she must do so” (32). Edna understands that earlier in her life she followed this dictate without even thinking about it; she conceded in all cases, "not with a sense of submission or obedience to one's compelling desires, but without thought, as we walk, move, sit, stand, or follow the daily treadmill of life which was distributed to us" (78). But she now realizes that this model was simply a treadmill whose path was always determined by someone else. The feminine treadmill of late 19th-century bourgeois culture is shaped by more than just an expectation of submission. According to Hendrick Hartog, one of the mainaspects of American marriage in the 19th century was dissimulation, by which a woman's public identity was altered by her marriage: "concealment gave wives not an absence of identity but rather a recognized particular identity, an identity which sometimes granted them certain privileges” (127). Edna finds these privileges in the thoughtful packaging, jewelry, and furniture that her husband sends home. But these gifts come at the cost of an expected identity to which Edna must subscribe. This identity has its duties which are made explicit in Thorstein Veblen's description of the leisure class at the end of the 19th century. In the leisure class, such as the Creole culture in which Edna lives, leisure and conspicuous consumption are necessary indicators of a family's success, and "the duties of indirect leisure and consumption fall upon the wife alone" ( 81). Edna realizes and rejects her participation in this system when she vengefully abandons her Tuesday afternoon reception day, "the emblem of a widely practiced leisure activity." Her husband confirms that these hours are not important in themselves, but rather in the economic framework of New Orleans society. He tells her angrily: “We must observe propriety if we ever want to continue and follow the procession” (101). Edna realizes at one point that the institution of marital expectations is itself inviolable. It's like the diamond in her wedding ring that she violently stomped on, only to discover that "her little boot heel made no mark, no mark on the little glittering circle" (103). The institution is an ornament carefully crafted by someone other than the wearer, an adornment that has little value other than the pride of the wearer. She understands that trampling on the ring was a “futile expedient” (109) that achieved nothing. Rather than trying to harm the system, she distances herself from it. As Edna rejects her position within this system, the narrator says, “she was becoming herself and daily rejecting this fictional self” (108). For Edna, this fictional self arises not from the specific conditions of her relationship, but rather from the logos of the leisure class. She visits Madame Ratignolle and notes the “domestic harmony” that reigns in their home thanks to the serious and happy involvement of both husband and wife in the relationship. But even in this scene of marital bliss, Edna sees a “dreadful and desperate boredom” (107). Edna has successfully “escaped confinement,” as Toth explains, and because she rejects not only the specific but also the general conditions of her confinement, Edna becomes a model of female liberation. So far, no mention of conditions has come up in the discussion. which generate this awareness of confinement. Indeed, any discussion focused on confinement only considers the negative aspect of Edna's quest. In becoming herself, Edna not only sheds old layers, she also discovers new ones, or at least previously repressed layers. As she contemplates abandoning her old world, she says, "the fruit seller, the flowers that grew there before her eyes, were all part and parcel of a foreign world that had suddenly become antagonistic." This antagonism, it is suggested moments later, comes from the fact that "she was thinking about Robert. She was always under the spell of his infatuation...the thought of him was like an obsession, always pressing upon her " (104). Robert's presence is the emblem of the positive towards which she moves towards the awakening of her sensual side. And Robert's presence immediately throws into doubt the true nature of Edna's rebellion against her confinement. The narrator says thatthe absence of the loved one even makes the flowers antagonistic. The use of the blameless flower here prompts the reader to interpret all of Edna's antagonism, not as arising from something inherent in the antagonistic object, in the person, in the system itself, but rather in the subjective understanding that Edna has under the influence of her obsession. At this point, we are delicately invited to view Edna's rebellion as a simple manifestation of her sexual obsession. This understanding of Edna, Priscilla Allen asserts, fulfills the male criticism written about Edna Pontellier: "Eros rules all on this, there is general agreement among modern critics" (226). This reading of Edna shows how “as a woman, she must be dehumanized. It is universal in our culture that she is designed only to perform biological functions, to be a sexual partner [if not to be] a mother” (229). With Allen's direction, we could see that this belittling of Edna's rebellion is overly simplistic, not least because Edna says she has always had antagonism towards some of the treatment she received from from her husband (since she has not always had an antagonism towards flowers). After a scene where her husband abandons her to take care of household affairs, we learn that “such scenes were somewhat familiar to her. They had often made her very unhappy” (102). Edna does not create the problems she encounters in her marriage and motherhood. She says she has always had "an inner life that questions," and now she simply gives that life an outer voice (57). But we cannot say that her love for Robert is not relevant to making this voice heard. While we come to understand Edna's awakening, Chopin does not ask us to read her awakening as a simple consequence of her oppressive conditions, or as a simple result of the positive element she finds in Robert. Instead, ambiguity is important when we begin to consider Edna's Quest. But defining the positive element “the sensuality hitherto attributed to Robert” as strictly an element of his relationship with Robert is once again a simplification of things. The central elements of Edna's movement toward consciousness are emphasized in the structure of the first five chapters and in these chapters we have emphasized both the ambiguity of the positive/negative nature of Edna's awakening and the ambiguity of the sensual awakening she has. underlines. The first chapter of the book is the only one in the novel where Mr. Pontellier is the narrative focalizer. The world is seen through its economic eyes, where Sunday is the day when there is no market information due to the lack of newspapers. Mr. Pontellier's eyes immediately turn to Edna, and we see Edna and her adventures from his point of view; his laughter is explained as “total absurdity; an adventure out there in the water” (45). Edna is understood as a narrative product of her husband, and this commodification of Edna is made explicit when Mr. Pontellier looks at “his wife as one looks at a valuable personal possession” (44). It is this commodification of women that Veblen speaks of when he explains the indirect acts of leisure consumption that fall to women. The first chapter presents this masculine view of Edna as it is the framework within which she and others have understood her up to this point. Later, we learn that she has always had some inner questioning, but even she admits that before her transformation, "she had never realized the reserve of her own character" (61). This first chapter narratively represents Edna's pre-transformed position, as a proxy actor for her husband, something he can see, appreciateand use to its economic advantage. In the fifth chapter, the transformation began, as the narrator says that Edna became aware of “a certain light that began to dawn within her, the light that, showing the way, forbade it” (57). There is something new, powerful and beyond the reach of the male perspective. The source and cause of this light are not singularly defined, as the three chapters that separate Edna's initial, male-centered vision and Edna's new inner vision do not discuss a , but of three distinct interactions. In the second chapter, Edna talks with Robert and enjoys his company. No sudden desire arises in Edna, but we first become aware of her presence as more frequent and more pleasant than that of Edna's husband. In the third chapter, she suddenly becomes angry with her husband when he asks her to check on their son's health. By her own admission, she is suddenly bothered by demands that did not bother her before: “they never seemed to have weighed much” (49). These two themes have already been discussed for the role they play in Edna's transformation, but in the fourth chapter a new element is introduced when we are introduced to Adèle Ratignolle. In her description, she is described in overtly sensual terms, as no other character is in their initial introduction: "one would not have wanted her white neck to be a little less full or her beautiful arms thinner. Never hands have never been more exquisite than his” (51). A few moments later, this relationship enters a more openly sensual realm when Adèle allows herself to place “her hand on that of Mme Pontellier, who was near her. Seeing that the hand was not withdrawn, she shook it tightly and warmly. I stroked it a little, tenderly. It is at this moment that Edna comes into contact with a feminine sensuality to which she was not accustomed: "the action was at first a little disconcerting for Edna, but she soon lent herself willingly to the gentle caress of the Creole” (61). This feminine sensuality cut off from any masculine presence continues throughout the book in her interaction with Adèle and with Mademoiselle Reisz, whose piano playing "the passions themselves awakened in her soul, rocked her, whipped her, while that the waves beat on her daily. her splendid body” (72). This presence of female sexuality makes it difficult to say that Edna's sexual awakening is simply the result of Robert. Something happens in these intervening chapters that causes Edna, for the first time, to feel a light “faintly beginning to dawn within her.” For the first time, she hears the "voice of the sea" which speaks to her soul with its touch, a touch "sensual, enveloping the body in its soft and close embrace" (57). This foreshadows the most obvious awakening that will come a few days later, when Edna suddenly discovers within herself the ability to swim, "and intoxicated by her newly won power, she swims alone" (73). Barbara Solomon says that at this moment Edna found new life and that “the waters had awakened her” (xxvi). But it is vital to see that water is not the source of his awakening. She only becomes aware of the symbolic sensual power of water after seeing the light awakened in her by the elements expressed in the first four chapters. When Edna actually performs her epic swim, during which she decides to "swim far away, where no woman had swum before" (73), it is tempting to understand it solely as the result of sensual awakening provoked by Miss Reisz's piano playing which occurred just before the group headed to the beach. We are even encouraged to do so by the description of theEdna's response to the game, which includes a reference to the sensation of waves beating "on her splendid body." But there are two other vital elements which condition this swimming. One is the fact that Robert “suggested” a night swim and then “directed” the crowd to the ocean. It is during the walk towards the sea that Edna feels the first desire for Robert, because "she wondered why he did not join [her] during the descent" (72). The second is that in this swim , she moves away from the shore, where her husband is. Water is therefore not the agent of awakening and, moreover, it cannot be read as the symbolic result of a simple one of the multiples. Edna's achievements: the personal pleasure she finds in Miss Reisz's piano playing, or the gratification she finds in spending time with Robert, or the defiance she develops towards her husband instead. This, the sea becomes the ideal symbol of the ambiguous confluence of these factors. The ocean is both powerful and receptive, thus embodying the dominant traditional notions of both male and female sexuality. elucidated by the other dominant and omnipresent symbol during this early awakening: the young lovers can be designated as a single symbol because they are never distinguished as individuals, nor even as males. and female. Their description as “the young lovers” suggests it to be read as a fusion of the sexes. And alongside the young lovers, there is always the “lady in black”, who spends her life touching her rosary or praying. Its constant proximity to the fusion of sexuality represents the figure of orthodox theology which accompanies every situation, never allowing the couple to merge too intimately. It is a parallel manifestation at the church of Cheniere Caminada, which immediately provokes in Edna “a feeling of oppression and drowsiness” (82). The woman represents the traditional societal restrictions that the lovers and Edna, in her own merged sexual discovery, seem to perpetually flee from. Her awareness of the ocean as both a force of life and death during her first swim represents a symbolic awakening to the confluence of repression and sexuality, and of both female and male sexuality. Immediately afterwards, Edna said breathlessly: “A thousand emotions overwhelmed me this evening. I don’t understand half of it” (75). This should not be read simply as her response to swimming, but as her response to the transformation she has undergone over the preceding days. Moments later, when the narrator describes her new condition, there is a similar effort at ambiguity: "she saw with different eyes and became acquainted with new conditions within herself which colored and modified her environment" (88). The narrator carefully avoids attaching these new eyes to specific conditions. The image of the ocean and the lovers constitutes Chopin's most powerful directive to avoid understanding the awakening of the title, embodied in swimming, as an awakening to a single aspect of freedom or oppression, but rather as an awakening to the multitude. Describing both Edna's first contact with the sea and the first light that dawns within her, the narrator explains that "the beginning of things, of a particular world, is necessarily vague, tangled, chaotic and extremely disturbing » (57). After her swim, Edna enters into a struggle with each of the problems apparent before her swim. As we have already discussed, she begins to reject her duties to her husband and children and spends time in her studio practicing her drawing. She leaves the house in which she was just a piece of furniture and moves into independent accommodation. At the beginning of the novel, Madame Ratignolle tells Robert that Edna is not sexually, 1899.