A review by dean_issov
Kate Chopin : The Awakening, and Selected Short Stories by Kate Chopin

reflective sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

 "In short, Mrs. Pontellier was beginning to realize her position in the universe as a human being, and to recognize her relations as an individual to the world within and about her." Chapter VI, p. 17. This is a quote from the book that made me invested in not just the story but the world in which the author was writing in. The Awakening by Kate Chopin was published in 1899. Set in and around New Orleans, The Awakening tells the story of Edna Pontellier, a young wife and mother who meets and falls in love with the son of a Louisiana resort owner. As she grows distant to her husband, Edna begins to develop a sense of herself as a whole person, with unique desires and interests. Wanting to take her life by her own hands, she flouts convention by moving out of her husband's house, having an adulterous affair, and becoming a painter. Despite the novel receiving appreciation from Chopin's contemporaries, she would have remained neglected by literary history if it were not for the recovery of The Awakening in the 1960s.

The novel is easy to read and medium paced, although it doesn't have the Victorian style English I was expecting it to have, I was still happily surprised by Chopin's eloquence in her narration. It didn't feel like she was portraying Mrs. Pontellier as either a protagonist or an antagonist but simply a flawed young woman in an incredibly sexist society, figuring out her place in it. The way sexism was depicted was not subtle but in your face which I liked. Quotes like "If it was not a mother's place to look after children, whose on earth was it? (Chapter III, p. 7)" and "Woman, my dear friend, is a very peculiar and delicate organism... Most women are moody and whimsical. This is some passing whim of your wife, due to some cause or causes which you and I needn't try to fathom. (Chapter XXII, p. 89)" highlights both the willful ignorance of men toward the fact that women have complexity and their accustomed place of privilege by gender. They cannot fathom a woman not wanting to be a mother or having emotions that doesn't meet their idea of how a woman should behave. Reading these parts of the novel just makes me imagine Chopin writing it with a smirk, knowing well that it will provoke the 19th century men who will read it. 
 
Mrs. Pontellier and her story throughout the novel raises many questions about womanhood, autonomy, and the gender roles placed in our society. She is a simple house wife and mother in the eyes of her husband and friends, but is that really all she is? Throughout the novel we get to have a piece of her mind: she wants to become an artist, to travel, to abandon her husband and run after a man she genuinely has feelings for, to live; not to just merely exist within the confine of societal expectations. The ending of the novel made many readers confused and provoked. Spoilers ahead. 
Swimming naked in the sea whilst thinking of her husband, her children, her lover, and her friends. They never really understood her perspective. Perhaps it was the pressure of gender roles that finally got to her, or the ignorance of men, or the hopelessness of pursuing art in a world where women were belittled; she gives up swimming and her strength is gone. Her suicide had many interpretations throughout the years, but that I will not go through for the sake of brevity. What is important is to know what she felt throughout the snippet of her life in which we were able to witness in the novel. 

The popularity of the novel speaks volumes on how relatable it still is today. How many women feel like Mrs. Pontellier? How many men are still ignorant over basic facts about womanhood? The character that Chopin created depicts a reflection of what needed to change in her world. During the 19th century, women were not able to vote, to pursue careers dominated by men, to continue to a higher education, to take a book in the library without the assumption that they are there to obtain it for their husband or father. Today, we have seen progress in gender equality, and in light of that we must appreciate works like Chopin's The Awakening; works that were ahead of its time and caused a multitude to think and act differently, to question the very way their society functions. 

To wake up. 
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