Readers' Review: "The Awakening" by Kate Chopin
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2012-04-18/readers-review-awakening-kate-chopin
Kate Chopin’s “The Awakening” was written in 1899. It’s the story of Edna Pontellier, a young wife and mother, who falls in love with the son of a friend while on vacation in Grand Isle, Louisiana. When “The Awakening” was first published it sparked moral outrage and disturbed readers. Now it’s considered a feminist landmark. But in the late 1800’s, feminism had barely found its voice in the South. Edna’s desire to find her true self defied social conventions and she is literally swept her away on her journey of self-discovery. For our April Readers’ Review: Kate Chopin’s “The Awakening”.
Guests
Jane Holmes Dixon
Suffragan Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington
Judith Warner
author of "Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety" and "We've Got Issues: Children and Parents in the Age of Medication" and a columnist for Time.com
E. Ethelbert Miller
poet; director of the African American Resource Center at Howard University, Board Chair of the Institute for Policy Studies.
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Program Highlights
Kate Chopin's turn-of-the-century novel "The Awakening" is our Readers' Review book this month. With talk of the so-called war on women in this election year, it seems particularly relevant to return to this landmark feminist novel. Our guests discuss the book and its significance today.
The Word "Depression" Not Used In The Text
Though the novel deals with themes of depression, the actual term is not used in the text - possibly because, Miller muses, it just wasn't part of the terminology at the time. Edna, the main character, is thrown in to a culture she isn't familiar with. Up until she marries, she's been used to a very Presbyterian-Protestant life. After her marriage, she goes to New Orleans and is exposed to the freer Creole culture. "They play a game that she doesn't understand and that she can't master," Warner said.
"It Was Considered A Scandal"
The book, when it was first published, "was considered a scandal. It was absolutely rejected. It was considered vulgar. The writing was considered to be terrible," Warner said. About ten years after Chopin's death, people started recognizing its worth. "It wasn't really valued and recognized as a feminist work until, of course, much later, until we had the vocabulary to see it that way. But I just wondered how much of the ending followed necessarily from the character or how much was it a structuring device that served some other purpose? And I don't know," Warner said.
Isolation
Edna, like many women who had few options in the past, felt isolation keenly. A caller who is a stay-at-home father pointed out that anyone who stays home with children primarily is at risk for feeling this kind of isolation today. "I love staying home with my son, but it is so alienating because mothers do not like to associate with me when I take my son places because there is just a social stigma about stay at home fathers. And so I just wanted to point out that it is something that has come to light for women and that's a good thing, but I would like to see it sort of come to light more for men as well," the caller said.
You can read the full transcript here.
Comments
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I am a playwright living in St. Petersburg, Florida and have just written a 10 minute play based on one of Kate Chopin's short stories, "The Dream of an Hour," which recently had two staged readings in the area. What I find wonderful about Kate Chopin's stories and the novel, "The Awakening" is the power Ms. Chopin wrote about the freedom of choice most women in her lifetime did not possess. The ending of "The Awakening" still breaks my heart.
Is Edna’s act of suicide at the end of the novel an act of bravery or cowardice? Do you think it was an intentional or premeditated act on her part? Why does Chopin leave the answer to this question so vague?
Kate Chopin's short story "Story of an Hour" is my absolute favorite. How she handles her husband's death is incredible -- and she is punished at the end for the complexity of her feelings -- and I feel this is equally true in "The Awakening." If your listeners have the chance, please read "Story of an Hour"!
Regarding the comments about the suffragist movement in the 1890s. Take a look at the NY Times archives and note how many women in New York City were holding anti-suffragette meetings in their homes with the premise that women could not be sullied with such nonsense.
It is very interesting to me that Kate Chopin's short story "The Story of an Hour" also ends in death as a means of breaking free from the patriarchy the main character Mrs Mallard was subjected to.
"The Awakening" always prompts a fascinating discussion. Just for your information: A bust of Kate Chopin was recently installed in a Writers Corner in St. Louis' Central West End. She joined sculptures of T.S. Eliot and Tennessee Williams, who also spent much of their childhoods in St. Louis. Chopin was born in St. Louis and is buried here in Calvary Cemetery along with the bodies of her six children.
I was a bullied and rejected teen questioning my sexuality when this book inspired my own awakening. It inspired a compassion toward myself and others like me; toward women and other people trapped in restrictive roles; and it taught me a lesson about the dignity of suicide. Growing up in a conservative rural town in a strict Catholic family, the inner life, much less suicide, were taboo, and Kate Chopin helped me to see that suicide was much less about giving up and disobedience than it was about freedom and choice.
For these reasons, I find it a bit ironic and sad that many, including some Feminists, tend to pigeonhole this book as Women's Lit. Although I find no harm in including this work in the "Feminist Anthology," my wish is that the Awakening be regarded as a universal classic for its unique and deft handling of several morally ambiguous and greatly disputed topics. EG, right now I feel this book is prescient in the face of the bullying crisis and is a reminder of why we need the It Gets Better campaign and the Born This Way Foundation.
It's too bad this discussion had to be marred by the usual cheap propaganda shot "with talk of this so called war on women...". This line has been recorded and will be forwarded along with so many others to the politicians who wish to stop the taxpayer financing of this kind of 'balanced' approach to the news. The cutting has to start somewhere and nowhere is a more perfect place than right here. It's an important book and thanks for bringing it up.
Simply bizarre.
Thank you Diane for this incredible and timely show. In the wake of the troubling developments against women's moral agency in reproduction, thank you also for including a religious leader on your panel to discuss Kate Chopin's profound work. In 2005, after I read The Awakening, my response was an art work that was loosely inspired by Leonardo's Vitruvian Man. Kate's words describing Edna's final breathtaking walk into the water was written directly onto the wall in a circle around a pearly blue waxed encrusted lacy dress, reminiscent of the late 1800s, placed at the center of the circle. This piece was debuted in a solo exhibition at a college. In the few days between mounting the show and the public reception, Louisiana had been struck by Hurricane Katrina. When I arrived that evening before the visitors, my stomach turned as I gazed upon it. I had given it the title "Solitary Soul", Kate Chopin's original title for The Awakening. For a moment, I stood there and had wondered if I should remove it. Later, I could hear soft gasps when people read description. I now attach many more layers of meanings and emotions to The Awakening that extend beyond the female condition.