"The Awakening" Kate Chopin

"I'm not going to be forced into doing things.  ... I want to be let alone.  Nobody has any right..."

"The trouble is," sighed the Doctor grasping her meaning intuitively, "that youth is given up to illusions.  It seems to be a provision of Nature; a decoy to secure mothers for the race.  And Nature takes no account of moral consequences, or arbitrary conditions which we create, and which we feel obliged to maintain at any cost."

Edna talking to Doctor Mandelet in Kate Chopin's "The Awakening"

The first time I experienced "The Awakening" was in 1991.  I was relocating from Stillwater, Oklahoma, to Durham, North Carolina, and had checked this recorded story out from the library to listen to along the way.  It was one of those pieces of literature that I felt I should read but did not have the patience to read on paper.  I remember rooting for Edna, frightened that her departure from the norms of society would 'ruin' her, as they say.  I was soaking in a claw-footed tub on the second story of the 100-year-old house I had moved into in Durham when I got to the end of the story.  Lying naked in the rapidly cooling water I remember feeling chill as Edna entered the water and then shocked to know that was the end.

Twenty-five years later, and this time reading on paper, I was more interested the words than the story.  There are several passages that struck a chord in me, often a sour one.

"It would have been a difficult matter for Mr. Pontellier to define to his own satisfaction or any one else's wherein his wife failed in her duty toward their children.  It was something which he felt rather than perceived, ad he never voiced the feeling without subsequent regret and ample atonement."

This is turn-of-the-century Louisiana, and the Pontellier's are members of society.  At least that is what Mr. Pontellier wants to be.  He is so very concerned about appearances that when he finds that while he is conducting business in New York Edna has moved out of his house, he creates a subterfuge by hiring carpenters to make changes in the house to explain her absence.  He wants the house to represent his status in society, and having a devoted wife who runs the household and cares for his children is just another fixture that he needs.

"At a very early period she had apprehended instinctively the dual life-that outward existence which conforms, the inward life which questions."

Edna recognizes the two sides of herself, but it is not until she discovers the cost of her outward existence that her ability to maintain that dual life begins to break down.  There is very little that is her own.  Her ability to swim was claimed by others ("Each one congratulated himself that his special teachings had accomplished this desired end.").  Mr. Pontellier expected her to take care of his children first and to forego her artistic endeavors to whatever free time was left.  He also expected her to participate in the social obligations of women of society to visit or be visited by others during the day, taking away the free time that she might otherwise have.

"When he leaned forward and kissed her, she clasped his head, holding his lips to hers. 
     It was the first kiss of her life to which her nature had really responded. It was a flaming torch that kindled desire."

Chopin's work was condemned as vulgar.  The book was banned from libraries, did not make money for her, and kept her later works from being published.  It was revived in the 1960s and has become a classic.  While the independence of women is more easily accepted today, our Victorian leanings still work to deny some women of sexual independence and satisfaction.  How many stories are there now of women not knowing sexual fulfillment until later in life?  And how will the current religious fervor play out for the lives of women?

I was lying in the clubfoot bathtub in Durham, because I had made choices that allowed me that freedom.  My husband had effectively given me a choice of being his maid, cook and mistress or pursuing a doctorate in mathematics.  According to him, I couldn't do the last of these unless I faithfully fulfilled the first three.  I made my choice to do what it took to finish my degree, which meant leaving my husband, returning to graduate school and then moving to North Carolina to follow my dissertation adviser so that I could complete my studies.  It was while in Durham that I applied for and obtained the job I now hold at Simpson College.  However, it took many more years for the sexual awakening that Edna experienced at such a young age.  Unlike Edna, I won't let the arbitrary conditions of society to deny me of seeking fulfillment in life, both professionally and personally.