Scenery seduces character’s restless spirit

‘The Awakening’

Plot: In the book’s first pages, we meet Edna Pontellier vacationing with her husband and children on Louisiana’s Grand Isle. She’s a Kentucky girl who has married into a South Louisiana family and finds herself immersed in the unfamiliar Creole world, a Creole world filled with Creole “mother-women.” Chopin describes these mother-women as “women who idolized their children, worshiped their husbands, and esteemed it a holy privilege to efface themselves as individuals and grow wings as ministering angels.” Edna is neither Creole nor a mother-woman, but she’s been doing a good job posing as both.

During this summer in Grand Isle, things change for Edna. The sea has an intoxicating effect on her. It seduces her. It invites contemplation. The change is gradual, but slowly Edna begins to ignore stifling societal expectations and starts to do as she pleases. She may sleep outside all night on a hammock, if she pleases. She may take walks to the beach by herself, if she pleases. And she may keep the company of Robert Lebrun, the resort owner’s son, if she pleases.

The summer quickly ends, and she and her family return to New Orleans, where the desire for independence threatens to consume Edna. Her musician friend Mademoiselle Reisz at one point feels her shoulders to check the strength of her wings. ‘The bird that would soar above the level plain of tradition and prejudice must have strong wings,’ she tells her.

Why you would recommend this book: Ever so often, a book speaks to your soul. I’ve found a few. Sometimes it’s the beautiful prose that grabs me. Other times, I see my own reflection in a character. Whatever the reason, you know it when you find it. The books that stir me tend to be about restless spirits or characters with a rebellious sense of adventure – ‘On the Road,’ by Jack Kerouac; ‘Wild,’ by Cheryl Strayed; and, most of all, ‘The Awakening.’ I first read ‘The Awakening’ when I was in high school. It was assigned reading for senior English. Chopin’s turn-of-the-century story affected me like no other book had, even if I didn’t completely understand it at the time – enough to bring me back to the now well-worn pages many times since.

I’m reading ‘The Awakening’ again now to get ready for Robinson Film Center’s Book Lovers Supper Club on April 9. Every other month, we read a selection together and then meet for a book-themed dinner. Everyone is welcome, so pick up ‘The Awakening’ now (it’s short), and join us for discussion.

That moment you were on the edge of your seat: Edna and Robert’s friendship gives her an intimacy she is unable to find in her marriage. Robert speaks to her with the familiarity of an old confidant, while her husband appraises her as he would a piece of property. Whether together or apart, Robert is on Edna’s mind ‘with an intensity which filled her with an incomprehensible longing.’ How far outside of tradition will Edna’s awakening take her?

Lasting impressions: I have known many strong women as role models in my life, but Edna was the first one I met in literature. Chopin placed a woman and her desires right at the center of her story, something I didn’t know we were allowed to talk about. It was revolutionary to me. I’ve since read many great women characters by great women authors, but none has the grit and the edge of Chopin’s Edna.

Edna isn’t without suffering. She wouldn’t be as real otherwise. She is at times crippled by depression.

She has, at best, only a mild affection for her children. And though she desires independence above all else, in the end she may not be strong enough to accept the isolation that comes with the new freedom. But she tries. She knows what she wants, and she pursues it. She stops conforming to what society says she should be and lives her life, messy as it may be, on her own terms.

‘The Awakening’ is seductive, just like the sea. I return to it often. Today Edna’s story is as relevant as it was when I first read it and as ahead of its time as it was when audiences rejected it as scandalous in 1899.

Pick it up again, or for the first time, and join [the Robinson Film Center’s book club] April 9 for some good Louisiana seafood and a chat about my favorite book.