For those of you who may want to read along, I will be posting which chapters I read each week, so you'll know where I'm at in the book. I will also be noting page numbers whenever I quote the text directly. I'm using the Penguin Classics edition of the book, which looks like this:
(Yes, that is a boob. We are all adults here...presumably...)
Ok, well, let's dive in! I'm not going to give you any background to the novel itself, because I didn't bother to read the introduction. Sorry. I apologize to my fans, my friends, my family, my cats...I can do better. Buuuut I don't.
1. Summary: Chapters 1-10
Though The Awakening is actually the story of Edna Pontellier, the novel opens upon a scene of her husband, Mr. Pontellier, lazing on the porch on a sunny afternoon. He is reading the paper - well...he's trying to read the paper, but this stupid parrot keeps squawking, and he can't focus. He eventually moves to a different porch, where he relaxes for a few moments before he's joined by his wife, Edna. She has been spending the morning out for a swim with a handsome, young neighbor, Robert. They get along very well, but Mr. Pontellier doesn't exhibit any signs of jealousy.
The family is actually on summer vacation on a Louisiana island. The small community of people vacationing there are all very friendly and familiar, a fact that Edna takes a while to come to terms with. Robert, in particular, shadows her almost constantly, but as he is known to do this with married women, no one thinks anything of it. Mr. Pontellier be like
The three sit on the porch amiably until Mr. Pontellier decides to go play billiards at a local club. He doesn't return until late at night. Robert likewise abandons Edna to go play with the flock of neighborhood children, including Edna's own two sons.
When Mr. Pontellier comes home later that night, Edna is already in bed. He expresses some concern that one of their sons has a fever, he's pretty sure. Edna assures him that the kid doesn't, which prompts Mr. Pontellier to go off on her, saying she's an inattentive mother and why does she neglect them so much? After all, he's so busy with his firm and doesn't have time to watch the children AND earn a living (he says after an entire evening of gambling and drinking...)
Well, he smokes an angry cigar, then goes to bed. Edna heads out to the porch where she has a good cry (even though she's not really sure why...) until the mosquitos bite her so bad that she decides to go back inside.
SO MUCH EMOTIONS
The next day, Mr. Pontellier heads back to the city where he works and stays during the week. He sends Edna a box of chocolates, and all the neighbor women expresses the sentiment that he's such a great husband. Considering the night before, this is a bit awkward for Edna, but she admits that she "knew of none better," which is a pretty bleak picture of husbands at the time (50).
Then, we're introduced to Madame Ratignolle (more below). She's another of Edna's friends here on the island. She, Edna, and Robert hang out on the porch during the day, while Madame Ratignolle sews, Robert smokes cigarettes, and Edna sketches. Her sketches are pretty good, if not entirely accurate representations of the subject she's trying to sketch, and she ends up tossing them. Robert tries to lean his head on her shoulder, and she brushes him off, like
"Excuse me? No."
A little later, Robert asks Edna if she wants to go swim, and she says no at first, but then changes her mind.
A morning some time later, Madame Ratignolle and Edna go down to the beach together. They're not going to swim, but it's a nice, hot day so they decide to go hang out at their bathhouse on the beach. They start talking, and Edna tells Madame Ratignolle a story about a summer in Kentucky when she was a little girl. Eventually, all the neighborhood kids show up with Robert, and Edna runs off to play with them. Robert walks Madame Ratignolle home, and during this time, she tells him to back off Edna. He gets all pissy and offended, because she's basically insinuating that he's leading her on. He tells her that's nice to hear (*sarcasm*) and she's like
"Don't be so over-dramatic. Sheesh."
Later, there's a dinner party with everyone in the community attending. A bunch of people take turns entertaining, and Robert convinces a more solitary member of the neighborhood, Mademoiselle Reisz, to play some piano music for Edna. The music moves her deeply and she has another good cry, though again, she isn't really sure why. After the party, Robert suggests to everyone that they all go down to the beach for a late-night swim. Everyone agrees, and it's a big, fun time down in the water.
Edna, who has been trying and failing to learn to swim all summer, finally manages to make it out to the water. She has an exhilarating moment of power and self-control before she freaks out. She makes it safely back to shore, but decides to call it a night. The chapter ends with her heading back to the house with Robert, who leaves her lounging in a hammock that hangs off the porch. This is the first moment where some desire is attributed to the two, though neither acknowledges it.
Palpable sexual tension, aw yeah
2. Major Characters
Edna Pontellier
My Edna Pontellier head-canon
She has two sons, previously mentioned, who she loves very much. However, she is not a particularly motherly woman most of the time. She doesn't ignore them on purpose, but they tend to be pretty self-sufficient so she doesn't really have to pay attention to them all the time. As such, she's sort of put upon by her husband to be a better mom. He probably wishes she was more like...
Madame (Adele) Ratignolle
Head-canon
Madame Ratignolle is basically the perfect woman. She's beautiful, dainty, kind, funny, sassy, a great mom - what more could you want? Edna finds herself inextricably drawn to her, and they become good friends. In summers past, Robert has followed Madame R. around the way he follows Edna around. Madame R.'s life is dedicated to her several (4, I think?) young children, who she adores. The only thing she doesn't have? She's not particularly deep - what you see is pretty much what you get.
Robert Lebrun
Head-canon (aka, my future husband)
Robert is a young neighbor, son of Madame Lebrun, a wealthy widow that owns the cottages in which the community stays in the summers. He is clean shaven, playful, and attentive, following Edna around like a puppy dog. He's not necessarily flirty; he really just likes to keep the married women company while their husbands are away working. As (from what we can tell so far) the only bachelor around, it makes sense he'd want to spend his days with the beautiful women! However, he also spends much of his time playing with the neighborhood children, a hint that he hasn't entirely developed as an adult yet.
Mr. Pontellier
Head-canon
Edna's husband is a pretty average guy, by all accounts. He works in the city, he likes to play billiards and gamble during his free time, he's attentive to his kids (or, at least, as attentive as he's expected to be), he is nice to his wife...there isn't a whole, whole lot to say about him. He's not jealous of the time Edna spends with Robert, but he does feel disappointed by his wife's lack of natural mothering skills and wishes she'd spend that time more productively - by, you know, hovering over her children or something. Nevertheless, he's never particularly mean to her, and seems to love her regardless. So, do we like him? Jury's still out.
3. Major Themes
Well, so far as I can tell from the first quarter of the book, the main theme is Edna's emotional "awakening" - she starts to feel stirrings of uneasiness, of tension, of something, although she can't really put a name to any of these feelings yet. She is simultaneously repressed by her marriage and her motherhood, but appreciates and loves her family. She is conscious of Robert's attentions, but confused about how she should feel about them. She experiences a new level of self-awareness that she never really felt before now. Edna's increasing desire for independence is illustrated by her first swim into the ocean (THIS image is important - don't forget it!)
In fact, the ocean is so important that it gets to be its own theme now.
In the first quarter of the book, the ocean represents escape and revelation. Through listening to, being near, and swimming in the ocean, Edna begins to become aware of her individuality and personhood. Maybe it's the vastness of the ocean; perhaps it makes her feel lost in the identity that has been built around her, but not by her. Maybe the soothing, swooshing sound of the waves calms her mind and allows it to wonder to places and thoughts it's never visited before. Maybe it's the feeling of the warm, summer water kissing every inch of her skin that awakens her deeply repressed (and hitherto unknown) sexuality. As we continue to read the novel, I'll be paying extra close attention scenes on or relating to the beach and the ocean. (Beach - boundary between water and earth - represents crossing a boundary? Edna crossing over from unknown to becoming known? Eh? Eh?)
I also want to pay attention to three women in particular throughout the book: Edna, Madame Ratignolle, and Madame Reisz. They seem to me to represent different kinds of women, but I'll expand more on that as the story unfolds.
4. Favorite Quotations
Remember, I will be expanding on and explaining these quotes in more detail and context in the second half of this project. As for now, I'm just going to quote the parts that stood out to me.
(p. 49) "An indescribable oppression, which seemed to generate in some unfamiliar part of her consciousness, filled her whole being with a vague anguish. It was like a shadow, like a mist passing across her soul's summer day.
(p. 57) "In short, Mrs. Pontellier [Edna] 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 . . . perhaps more wisdom than the Holy Ghost is usually pleased to vouchsafe to any woman."
(p. 63) Describing Edna's husband and children:
"she grew fond of her husband, realizing with some unaccountable satisfaction that no trace of passion or excessive and fictitious warmth colored her affection, thereby threatening its dissolution. She was fond of her children in an uneven, impulsive way . . . Their absence was a sort of relief, though she did not admit this, even to herself. It seemed to free her of a responsibility which she had blindly assumed and for which Fate had not fitted her."
"She was flushed and felt intoxicated with the sound of her own voice and the unaccustomed taste of candor. It muddled her like wine, or like a first breath of freedom."
(p. 71) On music:
"It was a short, plaintive, minor strain. The name of the piece was something else, but she called it 'Solitude.' When she heard it there came before her imagination the figure of a man standing beside a desolate rock on the seashore. He was naked. His attitude was one of hopeless resignation as he looked toward a distant bird winging its flight away from him."
(p. 73) Edna's first swim:
"But that night she was like the little tottering, stumbling, clutching child, who of a sudden realizes its powers, and walks for the first time alone, boldly and with over-confidence. She could have shouted for joy. She did shout for joy, as with a sweeping stroke or two she lifted her body to the surface of the water. A feeling of exultation overtook her, as if some power of significant import had been given her to control the working of her body and her soul. She grew daring and reckless, overestimating her strength. She wanted to swim far out, where no woman had swum before."
(p. 74) ". . . intoxicated with her newly conquered power, she swam out alone . . . As she swam she seemed to be reaching out for the unlimited in which to lose herself."
Can't wait til next week!
