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SYMBOLISM IN KATE CHOPIN'S FINAL AWAKENING

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SYMBOLISM IN KATE CHOPIN'S FINAL AWAKENING

BY

Wendy Ann Fortson McHarris

A THESIS

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

MASTER OF LITERATURE IN ENGLISH

Department of English

2002

ABSTRACT
SYMBOLISM IN KATE CHOPIN'S FINAL AWAKENING
BY

Wendy Ann Fortson McHarris

Symbolism in Kate Chopin’s Final Awakening is a study
that addresses issues in The Awakening that are meaningful
not only to women but also to the multi-cultural audience.
In The Awakening, Chopin uses symbolism associated with
oppressed minorities to show how Edna Pontellier (the
heroine) is no freer then they. A major problem that this
thesis attempts to solve is: How can we as a multi-cultural
audience which includes African Americans and Mexican
Americans accept and appreciate Kate Chopin’s novel for
what it is without feeling that she has used our races like
wallpaper to highlight a rich White woman?

This thesis explores symbolism involving birds,
houses, race, and spinsterhood in contrast to motherhood.
The Awakening is deconstructed and contrasted to her prior
writings and historical information surrounding the

author’s life.

Copyright by
Wendy Ann Fortson McHarris
2002

This thesis is dedicated to
Dr. Louise Alice McHarris

Thank you for the last nine years of love, support, and
belief in me which has helped me to fulfill my dream of
writing about Kate Chopin’s The Awakening!

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like thank the following Professors in
chronological order who have shown their support,
guidance, and assistance towards the preparation of this
thesis. At Wayne County Community College in Detroit
Michigan, I would like to thank Dr. Harriet Slocum, Dr.
June Ridley and Dr. Eydee McCrary—Mireku.

At Marygrove College in Detroit Michigan, I would
like to thank Dr. Barbara Johns IHM, who first introduced
me to Kate Chopin’s The Awakening in a women's literature
class. I would also like to thank linguist Beatrice
Salem and Dr. Donald Levin for encouraging me to go on to
graduate school and my advisor Dr. Loretta Woodard. A
very special thanks goes out to my Shakespearean
instructor and mentor, Maureen DesRoches who not only has
taught me how to teach Shakespeare, but who has also
demonstrated what teaching is really all about.

At Michigan State University, I would like to thank
the chair of my committee, Dr Theresa Melendez, for her
assistance and support in the preparation of this thesis.
I would also like to think the other members of my
committee, Drs’ Scott Michaelsen, and Jyotsna G. Singh.

In addition, special thanks go out to Dr. Gloria Randel

for her continuous encouragement. I would also like to
thank the Michigan State University library staffs, which
includes the Inner Library Loans Services and the
Outreach Services. My experience at Michigan State
University (as well as the other colleges) has been both
challenging and rewarding.

Lastly, a special thanks to the following colleagues
who have supported me thoughtout my academic studies:
fellow Shakespearean Teri Miller, M.A graduate in Human
Resource Management — Marygrove College, Michele
Anderson, M.S.W. graduate - University of Michigan, and
Dolores V. Sisco, PH.D candidate - Michigan State

University.

Vi

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

CHAPTER 1: Part One
Kate Chopin’s Symbolic Birds
“ this animal was born in a cage.” . . . . . . . . . . 22

CHAPTER 1: Part Two

Symbolic Houses

“I’m tired looking after that big house. It never seemed
like mine, anyway-like home.” (Chopin 962) . . . . . . . 34

CHAPTER I: Part Three
Racial Symbolism
“Madame Ratignolle Hoped that Robert would exercise extreme

caution in dealing with the Mexicansm” (Chopin 924) . . 48
CHAPTER 2
Symbolic Female Binary Oppositions in The Awakening . . 70

CHAPTER 2: Part One

“The soul that dares and defies ” as symbolized by Chopin’s
regal spinster, Mademoiselle Reisz . . . . . . . . . . 72
CHAPTER Part Two

“mthe fair lady of our dreams”
The role of wife and mother Motherhood . . . . . . . . 84

ABBREVIATIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

CHRONOLOGY: Important Historical Dates Relating to Kate
Chopin’s life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106

Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108

vii

INTRODUCTION

For more than a century, critics have contemplated why
Kate Chopin wrote her novel The Awakening with a tragic
ending for its heroine. Edna Pontellier is a twenty—eight
year old married woman and mother to two young boys.
Edna’s Protestant parents are from “ the old Kentucky blue-
grass country" (Chopin 884)1. Edna’s father, who is known
to readers as the “Colonel,” fought on the Confederate side
of the war, and was an abusive plantation owner before the
war. The Colonel is also a misogynist. The narrator also
hints at the possibility that Edna’s father is responsible
for her mother’s death: “The Colonel was perhaps unaware
that he had coerced his own wife into her grave” (Chopin
954). For Edna, marriage means nothing more than another
means for survival in a patriarchal society:

As the devoted wife of a man who worshiped her, she

felt she would take her place with a certain dignity

in the world of reality, closing the portals forever

behind her upon the realm of romance and dreams.

(Chopin 898)
Edna, like her mother and the slaves that belonged to her

father, shares a common dilemma: how to escape from a

society that insists they employ a specific role that
coerces them to remain imprisoned.

Edna Pontellier’s characterization and final suicidal
swim into the Gulf of Mexico is symbolic of how freed
African Americans once felt about real possibilities of
freedom. The major theme in The Awakening is the conflict
between freedom and imprisonment. In a novel that is
written for and about an upper class White society, Chopin
uses symbolism associated with oppressed minorities to show
that her heroine is no freer then they. Issues of freedom
in The Awakening have never been thoroughly explored. This
is not to say that some of Chopin's critics do not think
about issues of freedom in relationship to race because
several have written about it. Within new historicism and
cultural studies, most critics believe that issues
involving freedom and race are worth investigating.

In Dr. Michele A. Birnbaum's2 essay, ““Alien Hands”:
Kate Chopin and the Colonization of Race,” issues of
slavery and race are not only directed towards the African
American characters in The Awakening, but she also
evaluates them as a sign for Edna. Birnbaum's essay
analyzes Edna in relation to the characters that represent
the Arcadians as well as the different mixtures of African

Americans. Birnbaum begins her argument by stating that

much of the criticism previously written about The
Awakening (she names Sandra Gilbert as one example) fails
because it attempts to construct Edna as the self-made
woman.

Dr. Priscilla Leder also uses New Historicism and
Cultural Studies in her essay, “An American Dilemma:
Cultural Conflict in Kate Chopin’s The Awakening,” in which
she focuses on Edna’s uncertainty about her life as she is
involved in the Creole culture. Leader strongly believes
that the Creole culture is both restricting and liberating
for Edna. Leader examines the way in which Chopin
characterizes the Creole women whom she feels represent the
civilized culture that are able to openly display freedom
of sexual expression, in contrast to Edna.

Dr. Phillip Barrish is among the critics who believes
that it is worthwhile to look at the way in which Chopin
used minority characters in The Awakening. In Barrish’s
essay, “The Awakening’s Signifiying “Mexicanist” Presence,”
he asks that readers pay close attention to Chopin’s use of
Black female characters in contrast to her treatment of the
young Spanish speaking girl, Mariequita. Barrish is the
first critic to specifically question Chopin’s use of the

Mexican culture.

Feminist critics also believe that Chopin’s novel is
important to their theoretical critique of culture within a
patriarchal society.

Dr. Helen Taylor undertakes her analysis of the novel
using a combination of feminism, historicism, and gender
studies. Taylor, who is interested in twentieth-century
American women writers of the South, writes about the
history surrounding The Awakening in her book Gender, Race,
and Region in the writings of Grace King, Ruth.McEnery
Stuart, and Kate Chopin. Taylor addresses Chopin's use of
Black characters and their language, in several of her
stories as well as her two novels, to argue that racism is
a major part of her prose. Taylor also examines Chopin’s
personal history in relationship to the tropes used by her
female and Black characters.

Dr. Maria Anastasopoulou, (who specializes in Feminism
and Greek studies,) also uses ideology that is associated
with African American Historicism. In Anastasopoulou’s
essay “Rites of Passage in The Awakening," African American
Historicism is used as a discourse to illuminate Edna's
movement towards the denouement of the novel.
Anastasopoulou's essay is an anthropological study, which
uses the term; “rites of passage” in comparison to The

Awakening’s plot development. Anastasopoulou's essay

examines Edna's journey beginning with her separation from
her marriage and motherhood duties, to her state of
individualism.

Dr. Anna S. Elfenbein, (an unreconstructed feminist
critic3 who specializes in Women’s Studies, American
Literature, and film,) is also interested in the history
that Chopin used to categorize her Black characters in
several of her stories based on their pigmentation.
Elfenbein addresses these issues in her book, Women on the
Color Line: Evolving stereotypes and the Writings of George
Washington Cable, Grace King, Kate Chopin. When Elfenbein
addresses the concept of race in The Awakening, she
examines the way in which Chopin illustrates race, class,
and gender in relationship to Edna, who is characterized as
being “different” from the race of Creoles who represent
the dominant culture.

As you can see, the issue of race in The Awakening
that encompasses symbolism associated with freedom and
imprisonment has created a limited number of debates among
different schools of literary theories. The majority of
critics who support Edna for having the courage to free
herself from the patriarchal society believe that Edna
Pontellier’s suicidal swim signifies more than an act of

suicide, and therefore, they celebrate both Edna and the

author.4 On the other hand, others who believe that any
form of suicide is immoral criticize Chopin’s literature,
as witnessed in Father Daniel S. Rankin’s biography.5
Rankin was the first person to write a biography about
Chopin. Per Seyersted is the succeeding biographer of
Chopin’s Kate Chopin: A Critical Biography (SCB) which was
written in 1969. According to Seyersted, after Rankin went
to the trouble to save all of Chopin's manuscripts offered
to him for safe keeping, “mhe concentrated on the regional
aspects of her writings, brushing aside The Awakening, for
example, as “morbid”” (SCB 9). Harold Bloom6, like Rankin,
uses negative language about Chopin's novel in his
introduction to a critical analysis about Kate Chopin
titled.MOdern Critical Views: Kate Chopin. Bloom begins
his argument about The Awakening by stating that Edna’s
suicidal swim demonstrates “a narcissistic self-investment
that constitutes a new ego for the heroine” (Bloom 1).

Other studies that address Edna’s suicide as negative
include George M. Spangler’s essay, “Neglected Fiction:
Kate Chopin’s The Awakening: A Partial Dissent.” Spangler
believes that Edna’s act of suicide is not a persuasive or
appropriate way for Chopin to have ended the novel. Marina
L. Roscher’s essay, “The suicide of Edna Pontellier: An

Ambiguous Ending?” also makes an inquiry into Edna’s

reasons for committing suicide. In order to make sense out
of Chopin’s reasoning for creating Edna’s suicide, Roscher
parallels the tragic ending in relationship to modern
poetic novels. Manfred Malzahn makes assumptions in his
essay, “The Strange Demise of Edna Pontellier," that Edna's
suicide might be connected to her relationship with Arobin
(the young man with whom she becomes involved). Malzahn
also suggests the possibility that a pregnancy might have
occurred during their encounters. Steven T Ryan debates in
his essay, “Depression and Chopin’s The Awakening,” that
poststructuralism critics, which include feminist and
Darwinist, have overlooked the fact that Edna’s behavior
closely resembles that of one who suffers from depression.
Thanks to Seyersted, who is responsible for publishing
a biography about Chopin without the morality stigmas, we
can now use our own judgment about issues involving The
Awakening, which are important in our critical
understanding of her works. Seyersted has also co-edited
other books with critic Emily Toth. Seyersted and Toth’s
editions of Chopin’s works include details on Chopin’s
life, as well as more collections of her published and non
published short stories, an unpublished collection of
poems, essays, sketches, and diaries.7 Were it not for

these books, our knowledge would remain limited to Chopin’s

first biography written by Daniel S. Rankin in 1932. With
so much new material offered today, Chopin’s novel, The
Awakening, offers itself to an audience that goes beyond
the traditional approaches to literary criticism.

The preceding authors have proven that all of Chopin’s
works play an important part in our understanding of how
she came to write The Awakening. Readers need to question
Bloom’s introduction and authority to introduce the
critical essays that are written about Kate Chopin because
his knowledge about her literature is limited as witnessed
by his opening statement, “ she published two novels, At
Fault (1899), which I have not read ” and “Its faults are
mostly in its diction (referring to The Awakening); Chopin
had no mastery of style” (Bloom 1). Clearly, Bloom's
investment with Kate Chopin is grounded on his idealistic
participation in literature. Bloom’s authority to write
without full knowledge of Chopin’s works comes from his
economic, social, and political position in the literary
canon. Bloom’s negative and uninformed critical review of
Chopin exemplifies why critics during her time were able to
control the literary canon. Gilbert and Gubar, for
example, wrote in their introduction to the novel that soon
after The Awakening was published by Herbert S. Stone &

Company on April 22,1899, Chopin’s hometown libraries in

St. Louis demonstrated their disapproval by refusing to
place copies on their shelves (Gilbert 991).8

Before writing The Awakening, Kate Chopin was
respected and admired by her audience as a successful
writer who demonstrated a natural ability to capture images
of her surrounding cultures in literature. This talent
classified Chopin as a writer of local color. Not only
does The Awakening show Kate Chopin’s talent as a local
colorist but it also represents a life of ongoing
awakenings for the author as well as for her heroine, Edna
Pontellier, who represents Chopin’s final awakening. Kate
Chopin could write interesting local color literature for
her audience because, like Edna, she had continuous contact
with persons from outside of her own race which, according
to Per Seyersted, included “Negro servants (living) in the
O'Flaherty home”(Seyersted 15).

It is understood that the vast majority of “Negroes”
living in the antebellum south were slaves. Moreover,
Whites who had slaves before the war also could afford to
have Negro servants in their homes when the war ended, as
did Chopin after the death of her husband. According to
Toth, Chopin’s inability to keep up the business and
property in New Orleans did not stop her from hiring

several servants when she moved her family of six to St.

Louis which, as Toth states, included a “”mulatto,”
“quadroon,” and an “octoroon,” designating degrees of
“blackness” (UKC 68). Kate Chopin’s life as an Anglo-Saxon
child living during the pre-Civil War was typical: like
most White families in the South, she had her own Black
Mammy to care for her. By having a slave to act as
surrogate mother, Kate Chopin (like many other White
children living in the South during the eighteen hundreds),
was offered the chance to learn how to speak in a dialect
that differed from that of her ancestors. Learning how to
speak another culture’s language may have its advantages:
however, knowing can also lead to an awakening to things
one may or may not be ready to deal with.

The child / mammy9 relationship not only taught Chopin
how to communicate with the slaves, but it also created a
mixture of emotions and attitudes for her after she
developed into a young adult who was raised to believe that
slavery was a natural way of life for Africans living in
the United States. Per Seyersted’s biography about
Chopin’s life sheds light on this argument about Chopin’s
naive understanding of slavery by including a quote from
one of her confidants, William Schuyler, who believed that
Chopin saw her mammy and family slaves as being very

loving, devoted, and loyal (Seyersted 21).

10

Kate Chopin’s personal experiences with slavery stayed
on her mind beyond the Civil War and long after her
marriage to Oscar Chopin. If Kate Chopin was truly naive
to the brutal treatment and conditions that slaves suffered
during her childhood, then Oscar Chopin was partly
responsible for her first introduction to and understanding
of what is meant by having an awakening. Seyersted tells
us that when Oscar Chopin’s father purchased the McAlpin
plantation, it included along with its 4,367-acres ninety-
four slaves. (Most people have come to learn the history
surrounding the McAlpin plantation because it was the model
for Stowe’s famous novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin.)

Oscar Chopin's inability to follow in his father’s
footsteps as a cruel-minded slave owner might have aided in
Kate Chopin’s ability to write so many stories that were
about her surrounding cultures. Kate Chopin’s The
Awakening resulted from a life of ongoing awakenings that
include the following subjects: slavery, the Civil War,
female relationships, the role of women, marriage,
motherhood, and being a writer in a patriarchal
marketplace.

Kate Chopin’s primary audience was accepting of her
writings so long as White characters displayed superiority

over the characters of other races and, more importantly,

ll

so long as women stayed in their place. As Barbara Ewell
tells us, “Chopin's choice of subjects and settings was
also influenced by the marketplace” (Ewell 159). Ewell's
comment is a reminder of how European Americans, as well as
the British, became increasingly involved in voyeuristic
activities such as The Great Exhibition of 1851”. Queen
Victoria and Prince Albert created this event because they
wanted to showcase their own culture at the expense of
others. This exhibition allowed people to gaze upon
cultures from other parts of the world in contrast to their
own during the height of the industrial revolution.
Voyeurism in America was also taken to the extreme
when people like Phineas Taylor Barnum“, created exhibits
that were designed to shock and amuse audiences. When most
people hear the name P.T. Barnum, they envision a circus
with lots of elephants parading around in a circle.
However, Barnum not only purchased elephants to entertain
Americans, he also either purchased, owned, or paid humans
as part of his many exhibitions such as a Black slave by
the name of Joyce Heth, the first historically known set of
Siamese twins, Tom Thumb, and Jenny Lind, a famous Swedish
soprano to whom he paid a incredibly large amount of money

for exclusive rights to her talent.

l2

One can argue that many of Kate Chopin's short stories
follow these examples because they capture the day to day
problems in the lives of people who were classified as
America's racial oddities. Stories such as “Old Aunt
Peggy,” “A Little Free-Mulatto,” and “Desiree's Baby,” for
example, all capture the lives of people who represented
the oddities of slavery (CW). Nevertheless, although the
mainstream has finally come to accept The Awakening and to
classify Chopin as a great nineteenth century writer, The
Awakening continues to sit on the desegregating lines in
today’s colleges and universities because of the growing
number of minority students who are reluctant to read her
work because Chopin was a antebellum writer whose family
owned slaves.12

This negative attitude is exacerbated by The
Awakening’s inclusion of characters of color that were
given diminutive parts as in, for example, the degrading
role played by the Spanish speaking girl, Mariequita. The
Mexican American culture may find Chopin's characterization
of Mariequita degrading because of her position in the
novel. Mariequita is characterized as a sexual and
barbaric icon whose only purpose is to cause conflict
between the Lebrun brothers. The characters who portray

African Americans are mostly voiceless servants. The

13

Awakening’s list of voiceless characters includes the
“little negro girl”(who is given no name) who runs errands
for Madame Lebrun and operates her sewing machine (CW 913)
and Beaudelet, the Black man who runs the ferry that takes
people between Grand Isle and Chéniere Caminada (CW 915).

A major problem that this thesis attempts to solve is:
How, as African Americans, can we accept and appreciate
Kate Chopin’s novel for what it is without feeling that she
has used our race like wallpaper to highlight a rich White
woman? After all, Edna Pontellier had everything in life
that a White woman could ask for during her time — except
freedom. African Americans are not the only race of people
who should question Kate Chopin’s use of outside cultures.
Many disapproving attitudes can be overcome if students are
encouraged to explore issues surrounding race and gender
that contribute to shaping their attitudes towards the
novel. Never before has there been such a need for
pedagogy to develop more diverse ways of teaching The
Awakening as well as other canonized literature from a
multi-cultural format so that it will be meaningful to all
students involved.

Naturally we cannot change all of the content of the
literature that is taught in our schools, but we can expand

our way of looking at it to include ideas and historical

l4

issues that produce an interest for everyone. It goes
without saying that Emily Toth has paved the way for
students like myself, beginning with her dissertation13 that
focuses on Chopin's female and minority characters,
followed by her ongoing research that has resulted in
several books. However, it would be rewarding to see more
literary debates using Africanist theory to analyze The
Awakening: after all, it has already been thoroughly
analyzed using traditional approaches.14

Therefore, why should there not be a theory that
addresses issues of Africanism, which, one can argue, is so
deeply rooted in American literature such as The Awakening.
To my knowledge, Michele A. Birnbaum and Helen Taylor15 are
among the small number of critics to specifically address
Chopin’s characterizations of Blacks in Taylor’s book,
Gender, Race, and Region in the Writings of Grace King,
Ruth MCEnery Stuart, and Kate Chopin. Helen Taylor's book
only proves the need for us to expand our way of teaching
The Awakening to make it accessible to all.

I therefore want to demonstrate, in the following two
chapters, ways to address The Awakening that focus on
issues that are meaningful not only to women but also to
the multi-cultural audience. Symbolism used to signify

freedom and imprisonment are predominant elements used in

15

defining the messages that Kate Chopin offers readers in
The Awakening. Chopin uses symbolism artfully to
illustrate The Awakening’s plots, themes, and characters.
Chopin’s symbolism allows her the liberty to create a text
within the text in a way that was frequently used by
Shakespeare in developing his double plots.

Kate Chopin not only learned from reading playwrights
and authors such as Shakespeare”, but more importantly, she
learned from her lifelong knowledge and experience with
people of African descent. These were people who had no
other choice but to live their lives using symbolism as a
means for communication among themselves. The first
African Americans who lived as slaves understood the value
that language, art, and music offered. Each of these
symbolic devices was used in hopes of gaining freedom from
their oppressors. These symbols also helped to comfort
them when the possibility of freedom seemed hopeless.

In The Awakening, Chopin used symbolism to create
binary oppositions for her main character in relation to
her need for freedom. These binaries also are linked to
Chopin’s own life, as are similar themes from some of her
earlier stories leading up to The Awakening.

Chapter 1 explores Chopin’s uses of birds, houses, and

race, which are all linked together because of the way they

16

create images of freedom and imprisonment. Chapter 2
examines Chopin's symbolism that shows the conflict between
spinsterhood and motherhood. Spinsterhood presents a sense
of freedom while motherhood, on the other hand,
unquestionably imprisons. By looking at these topics, what
you will see is that Kate Chopin’s novel is the denouement

of her lifelong experience of awakenings.

 

NOTES

1 Also refer to chapter XXII (Chopin 948) and chapter
XXIV (Chopin 954 — 6).

2 Birnbaum, Michele. Letter to the author. 6 Dec.
2001.

3 Elfenbein, Anna. Letter to the author. 6 Dec. 2001.
Dr. Elfenbein also stated that her work about Kate Chopin
results from her dissertation, written in 1979.

4 Studies that address Edna's suicide as positive

include Elizabeth Balkman House. “The Awakening: Kate

Chopin’s ‘Endlessly Rocking' Cycle.” Ball State University

 

Forum. 20.2 (1979): 53-58. Sandra M. Gilbert. “The Second
Coming of Aphrodite: Kate Chopin’s Fantasy of Desire.” The

Kenyon Review 5.3 (1983): 42-66. Manfred Malzahn. “The

 

l7

 

Strange demise of Edna Pontellier.” Southern Literary

 

Journal. 23.2 (1992): 31-39. Helen V. Emmit. “”Drowned in a
Willing Sea”: Freedom and Drowning in Eliot, Chopin, and

Drabble.” Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature. 12 (1993):

 

315—32. Margit Stange. “Personal Property: Exchange Value
and the Female Self in The Awakening.” Genders 5(1989):
106-19.

5 Rankin, Daniel S. Kate Chopin and Her Creole Stories.

 

Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1932.

6 Harold Bloom writes from a psychoanalytic point of
view. Bloom has written theories of poetic misprision and
anxiety. Bloom is now devoted to studies that involve the
Bible and religion.

7 Per Seyersted, who teaches American studies at the
University of Oslo in Norway, is responsible for editing in

1969 The Complete Works of Kate Chopin (CW), which includes

 

Chopin’s short stories, sketches, essays, poems, and
novels. In the same year, Seyersted also published Kate

Chopin: A Critical Biography (SCB). In 1997, thanks to

 

friends and family members of Chopin, Seyersted was able to

edit yet another book titled A Kate Chopin Miscellany (KCM)

 

with the assistants of Emily Tothj who was now making her

authority known on the subject7. A Kate Chopin Miscellany

 

l8

 

offers Chopin fans materials written by her that are not
included in CW such as family portraits, more unpublished
stories, poems, personal diaries and letters, and a copy of
her music. Seyersted and Toth came together again along
with Cheyenne Bonnell7 in 1998 to publish additional

materials written by Chopin in their book, Kate Chopin’s

 

Private Papers (KCPP). Added to the list of findings in

 

KCPP are copies of Chopin’s personal records and
manuscripts, more diary entries and letters, and
translations from French to English of authors she admired.
Moreover, to mark the lOOU‘anniversary of Chopin’s The
Awakening, in 1999 Emily Toth indecently published another

biography about ChOpin titled Unveiling Kate Chopin (UKC).

 

8 In contrast to Gilbert’s review, Emily Toth writes
that the St. Louis libraries did not ban The Awakening from
their shelves. Nevertheless, Toth states that “Americans
do like stories of banned books ”(UKC 227). Although St.
Louis was intolerant of a novel written about a married
female character who desired one man and had a sexual
affair with another, Toth concludes that the novel was
never removed because the head librarian did not believe in

censorship over literature in libraries.

19

 

9 Patricia Turner writes about the treatment of Black
women before the Civil War who worked as Mammies stating
that wealthy Whites were the only ones that could afford
mammies “as house servants rather than as field hands” in

her book Ceramic Uncles & Celluloid Mammies: Black Images

 

and Their Influence on Culture. New York: Anchor Books,

 

(1994), 44.

10 Information about Great Britain's exhibition at the
Crystal Palace is made available at this web site:
www.victorianstation.com

u P.T. Barnum writes about his life story and how he
went about the business of creating entertainment in the
U.S. which included such people as Tom Thumb, Eng and Chang
who are among the first known Siamese twins, and

professional singer Jenny Lind to name just a few.

Barnum's book, Struggles and Triumphs, first published in

 

1855, is just as shocking now as it was when it was first
published.

n Included in Kate Chopin’s collection of letters is
one written by her mother to a distant relative living in
California. In Eliza O’Flaherty's letter, she expresses

sorrow and regret because the freed slaves were all packing

up and leaving. Interestingly enough, Eliza ends the

20

 

letter by pleading that the letter be burned after it is
read (KCM 104).
13 Emily Toth graduated from Johns Hopkins in 1975.

The title of her dissertation is “That Outward existence

Which Conforms: Kate Chopin and Literary Convention.”

M Authors that focus on studies associated with

feminist theory in The Awakening include Margit Stange,

 

Elaine Showalter, Patricia S. Yaeger, Peggy Skaggs, and
Sandra M. Gilbert. Studies that include historical

investigations of The Awakening include Michele Birnbaum,

 

Phillip Barrish, Helen Taylor, Priscilla Leder, and Emily
Toth.

5 Helen Taylor is a British professor who is Director
of Postgraduate Research at the School of English. Some of
her specialties are literature and culture of the American
South, twentieth—century American cultural production, and
African American writers.

16 Chopin was an avid reader of Shakespeare. Chopin
included comments and parts of Shakespeare’s plays and

poems in her “Commonplace Book” which is included in Kate

Chopin's Private Papers. Per Seyersted and Emily Toth, eds.

 

Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998. (57—8,

75,91,95-6, 98-9).

21

CHAPTER 1: Part One

Kate Chopin’s Symbolic Birds:
“ this animal was born in a cage.h’

The line above illustrates Kate Chopin’s first story
with a symbolic bird image, titled “Emancipation. A Life
Fable,” written between 1869 and 1870 (according to Per
Seyersted in CW on page 1004). “Emancipation” was the
first of many stories that Chopin created using birds to
symbolize different categories of freedom. In The
Awakening, Chopin uses at least five different bird images
to symbolize the contrast between freedom and imprisonment.
These include: the parrot, the mockingbird, the bird with
the broken wing, the strong wings of the artist, and birds
in flight, all of which are symbolic images that are vital
to understanding Chopin's novel. Each of Chopin's bird
symbols and images serves to identify a problem for the
main character.

The main bird in the novel, which happens to be a
caged green and yellow parrot, is the first symbol that
illustrates the main character’s identification as being
imprisoned. However, it is also important to mention the

opening lines in “Emancipation” (“mthis animal was born in

22

a cage.”) (Chopin 37) because they set the tone for The
Awakening’s introductory lines which begin with the male
parrot's voice asking persistently in French to be ‘left
alone for God’s sake,’ “Allez vous-en! Allez vous—en!
Sapristi!”(Chopin 881). During Edna’s visit to Grand Isle,
the parrot speaks on her behalf when he tells everyone,
including the children, to go away. Although Edna may have
felt like telling her husband or the children to go away,
it would have been inappropriate for her to do so. During
the first half of the novel, Edna did not have that kind of
nerve. Edna’s lack of nerve can also be analyzed by
looking at the colors of the parrot.

The parrot’s colors are worth discussing because they
symbolize some of Edna’s inabilities. The color green may
represent a desire to yearn after or to be filled with
jealousy or with envy. Green also carries a reference to
something lacking in experience and the knowledge gained.
When Shakespearean critics2 think of the color green in
literary terms, they recall the green world where
Shakespeare sends his characters so that they will return
with the knowledge that is needed to survive back at home
in the court. In Shakespeare’s green world, when
characters first enter, they lack experience, some come

with an attitude, or they might be envious or jealous of

23

someone. In the green world, they learn what is needed to
develop into a mature adult. When we think of the color
yellow, conventionally we visualize a person who is
characterized as either lacking in courage or, who acts as
if they are inferior to their peers. Edna was
inexperienced, as an outsider to the Creole world, feeling
isolated and not wanting to live like them. At the same
time, she was afraid to live a different life from the ones
lived by the mother-women surrounding her. Edna's life as
a wife to a Creole made her inferior to the mother-women
that surrounded her:

There were only Creoles that summer /They all

knew each other, and felt like one large family,

among whom existed the most amicable relations.

A characteristic which distinguished them and

which impressed Mrs. Pontellierm (Chopin 889)
She gained some knowledge about the Creole lifestyle from
her experience with them, but also felt trapped. Edna’s
death at the end of the novel resulted from her inability
to move beyond her green and yellow life because, like the
parrot and other oppressed persons included in the novel,
she could not accept the world in which she was forced to

live.

24

As the novel moves from chapter to chapter, the parrot
is seen and heard less and less, while at the same time,
Edna’s voice steadily replaces that of the parrot. For
example, in chapter eleven after Edna has had her third
awakening which results from her late night swim in the
Gulf, she begins to mimic words that are similar to that of
the parrot. When Edna’s husband tries to force her to come F-
to bed as she has decided to sleep outside on a hammock,
she says to him, “Don’t speak to me like that again; I

shall not answer you” (Chopin 912). Patricia S. Yaeger

 

draws our attention to the domestic roles that govern
Edna’s ability to speak when she writes that, “In
Pontellier’s linguistic world, the roles of speaker and
listener are clearly defined in terms of social and
material hierarchies” (Yaeger 207). Yaeger's theory
questions why Chopin chose to gender the parrot as male as
a symbol that speaks on behalf of Edna who wants to reach a
linguistic freedom.

Another example of Edna's progression to a parrot-like
behavior occurs in chapter nineteen when she is talking to
her husband about her need to be left alone to paint: “let
me alone; you bother me" she tells him (Chopin 939). Near
the end of the novel, Edna has completely learned how to

mimic the voice of the parrot, which is illustrated in

25

chapter thirty—four when she tells her lover, Arobin, to
leave her alone saying, “I don’t want to do anything but
just be quiet. You go away and amuse yourself” (Chopin
986). At this point in the novel we no longer hear the
voice of the caged parrot. However, what is evident is
Edna's struggle to free herself from the men that want to
keep her in a parrot’s cage who include: her husband
Léonce, her father the Colonel (chapter XXIII), Alcée
Arobin, the man that seduces her when she returns to New
Orleans (Chopin 976), and Robert Lebrun, the man that she
falls in love with during her visit to Grand Isle (chapter
XXXVIII).

Like the parrot, the narrator in the first lines of
“Emancipation” draws our attention to the bird's living
conditions inside his iron bar cage. Chopin’s choice to
make the bars of the cage iron rather than some other,
lighter metal which might have been available, creates an
image for the bird that is equivalent to slavery. The
green and yellow parrot may symbolize the Mexican culture
that was thought to be exotic by the dominant class of
people in the novel who belong to the White race of
Louisiana Creoles:

They are very handsome, / mthose Mexican women; very

picturesque, with their black eyes and their lace

26

scarfs. / (Arobin talking to Robert) “How did they
treat you down in Mexique?” “Fairly well.” / Stunning
girls, though, in Mexico. I thought I should never get
away from Vera Cruz when I was down there a couple of
years ago.” (Chopin 985)

Moreover, the parrot is treated in many ways in the

3 because it

same way as Blacks were before the Civil War
must be kept under lock and key to keep it from escaping.
In Chopin’s novel, the parrot’s cage stands at the entrance
to the main room of Madame Lebrun’s lodge so that everyone
who enters may gaze upon it as though it were a live
trophy. The parrot, much like the bird in Chopin's first
short story, seemingly displays a build that is strong and
beautiful. (Most green and yellow parrots, such as the
Double Yellow Nape4 for example, were taken from the Amazon
and used as pets because of their large size, their
beautiful markings and colors, and their ability to mimic
music and human speech patterns, unlike the mockingbird5
which can only mimic other birds and animals.)

Here Chopin includes a couple of binary oppositions of
strong/weak and free/confined that are used to illustrate
freedom as an unattainable state of being. Although the

male bird in “Emancipation” is characterized as being

large, beautiful, and strong, however, unlike the bird with

27

the broken wing in The Awakening, it does not lacks the
strength to survive when the cage door is mistakenly left
open:
Awaking one day from his slothful rest, lo! The
door of his gage stood openm / So out the opening
he thrust his head, to see the canopy of the sky
grow broader, and the world waxing wider. / On he
rushed, in his mad flight, heedless that he is
wounding and tearing his sleek sides — seeing,

smelling, touching of all things; even stopping to

 

put his lips to the noxious pool, thinking it may

be sweet. / Hungering there is no food but such as

he must seek and ofttimes fight for; and his limbs

are weighted before he reaches the water that is

good to his thirsting throat. So does he live,

seeking, finding, joying and suffering. The door

which accident had opened is open still, but the

cage remains forever empty! (Chopin 37 - 8).

It is a common practice among exotic bird owners to
clip the birds’ fight wings to eliminate any chance for
them to escape. Joyce Dyer argues that Chopin’s green and
yellow parrot serves as an foreshadowing of Edna’s
domesticated life among the Creoles which causes her to be

vulnerable like a trapped bird. Much like the parrot, Dyer

28

believes that “Edna has had her wings clipped so often that
she will spend all of her remaining days trying to recover
the strength and imagination it takes to soar” (Dyer 36).
Edna’s lack of strength to make her final swim at the
end is comparable to the wings of a bird that wants to soar
across the Gulf of Mexico because, not only does she lack
the strength and imagination that Dyer argues about in her
essay, she also lacks the needed knowledge that can only

come with practice and time (Chopin 966). Mademoiselle

 

Reisz questions if Edna has taken the time to strengthen

 

her wings so that she will be able to survive the fight to
freedom away from the patriarchal structure that keeps her
in a cage in chapter twenty—seven:

mshe put her arms around me and felt my shoulder

blades, to see if my wings were strong, she said

‘The bird that would soar above the level plain of

tradition and prejudice must have strong wings. It

is a sad spectacle to see the weaklings bruised,

exhausted, fluttering back to earth.’” (Chopin 966)
Mademoiselle Reisz’s concerns are a foreshadowing of the
tragic denouement that includes these lines: “A bird with a
broken wing was beating the air above, reeling, fluttering,
circling disabled down, down to the water” (Chopin 999).

Edna’s reaction to her newfound freedom, which results in

29

death, a topic that I will address later in this thesis, is
closely related to that of a male slave who is on the run.
In fact, Chopin characterizes Edna as a woman who, the
narrator tells us, has large hands that are very strong and
her body “was rather handsome than beautiful” (Chopin 883).
Moreover, if Edna’s wings were in any way clipped, how
could she have taken that swim in chapter ten that takes
her “far out, where no woman had swum before” (Chopin 908).

Although Chopin does not include the mockingbird
beyond the introduction of the novel, it is important to
note just what part the mockingbird plays in Chopin’s
symbolic world of The Awakening. Chopin's mockingbird
functions as a binary opposition for the parrot. The
mockingbird represents the dominant race in the novel who
are the Creoles, while the parrot, on the other hand,
represents Edna as well as the other races which include:
the quadroon nurse who looked after Edna's two children,
the little Black girl (later in the novel she is called a
little negro girl) who worked Madame Lebrun’s sewing—
machine, the Black women who worked in the kitchen on Grand
Isle, the Mexicans, and lastly, the cooks and maid who work
in Edna’s house in New Orleans.

Unlike the parrot that had to come to the United

States by ship and was perhaps sold to the highest bidder,

30

 

the Northern Mockingbird is a common bird of the United
States that gets its name for its ability to mimic other
birds' songs. During the 1800's, mockingbirds were
commonly placed in cages and treated as domestic pets6.
Nevertheless, Chopin’s narrator never mentions the
mockingbird’s persistent and maddening voice beyond The
Awakening's first lines. What she does tell us is that the
parrot repeats the words Allez vous—en! throughout the
novel (Chopin 881). The parrot’s only retaliation is
through its speech, which, as we are told in the first
sentence of the novel, consists of French, Spanish, and a
language that is unknown to the narrator.

The parrot and Edna share a common problem that is
synonymous with slavery: neither one fits inside the world
in which they live. Both of them came from a background
that included a variety of different languages surrounding
them. Moreover, with all of the people from different
cultures working or spending the summer on Grand Isle, it
is not surprising that the parrot found different languages
to imitate. However, what is even more interesting is that
the parrot speaks an unknown language that not even the
narrator can comprehend.

Chopin encodes a symbol into the text that has more

value for her modern multicultural audience than it had for

31

 

her own, which would explain why it has not been addressed.
The language that Chopin gives to the parrot demonstrates
not only the problem that Edna has as a woman living among
the Creoles’ patriarchal system, but it also symbolizes her
understanding about the effects that language has had on
slavery (keeping in mind that she was partly raised by
slaves). Marion Muirhead’s essay draws attention to the
parrot's fate in comparison to Edna’s:

ma bird may sing or even speak words, but it

does not understand its position in society

and the social structure that keeps it in place.

The animal is driven by instinct and limited by

environment and anatomy. The trained parrot

described in the opening passage articulates

words that express nothing but training, habit,

and repetition (Muirhead 6).
Muirhead’s ideas offer a useful explanation for the
parrot’s ability to mimic, however, it falls short in
answering why Chopin chose to give it “a language, which
nobody understood”.

I will suggest that Chopin’s parrot speaks a language
that is known by linguists as a pidgin. According to Baugh
and Cable, pidgin languages originally resulted from trades

that were made between Europeans, Portuguese, Spanish,

32

French, English, Africans, and Asians who needed a way to
communicate with each other in order to sell their goods
(Baugh 122). By definition, a pidgin language is the first
stage that leads to a Creole. Pidgin is a verbal specific
language, which is a spoken language with no written form.
As I stated earlier, the parrot could speak two known
languages. However, I believe the third language is a f'
pidgin that is a mixture of French and Spanish, since the ;
parrot is said to be able to speak Spanish and lived in a r

society of French speaking Creoles.

 

l
17
i.

Chopin understood what it meant to grow up speaking
pidgin because of her family’s slaves. Chopin had personal
knowledge about the difficulty that slaves had with
communication. Slaves had to learn how to communicate with
one another using a pidgin language because they were
placed on plantations with slaves of different tribes who
spoke different languages. Moreover, slaves also had to
learn how to comprehend the verbal language that belonged
to their owners. The slave's language, like Edna’s and the
parrot’s, was treated negatively. Chopin's symbolic birds
are therefore important to our understanding of her
struggle with issues associated with freedom and

imprisonment.

33

 

 

CHAPTER 1: Part Two

Symbolic Houses:
“I’m tired looking after that big house. It never seemed
like mine, anyway-like home.” (Chapter XXVI 962)

When Edna leaves Grand Isle with the pidgin-speaking
parrot, Chopin does not want us to forget about it. The
symbol that takes the place of the parrot occurs when Edna
moves out of her husband’s house in chapter twenty nine,
and moves into the small four-room home located less than a
block away, which her servant, Ellen, names the pigeon
house (CW 968). Edna may have been able to silence the
parrot in the first half of her journey to an awakening,
but she proves that she can never lose sight of its cage.
Chopin uses houses in The Awakening to symbolize both
freedom and imprisonment. To further analyze this concept,
it is also important to look at, in chronological order,
the ownership of homes in The Awakening: Madame Lebrun’s
resort-home on Grand Isle, Madame Antoine’s Cottage on
Chéniere Caminada, the Pontellier house and Edna’s pigeon
house, Adele Ratignolle’s house, and Mademoiselle Reisz’s
house.

Madame Lebrun's resort-home on Grand Isle is where

Edna is first awakened to her life of imprisonment. Madame

34

 

Lebrun is the only female capitalist in the novel.
However, Lebrun’s ownership results from her husband’s
abandonment. Therefore, the resort-home on Grand Isle is
another one of Chopin’s symbols used to encode a binary
opposition of freedom / imprisonment within the novel.
Madame Lebrun may appear as a successful businesswoman
because of her ability to manage her property without the
aid of a man. However, her resort—home, like the bird
cages, is engulfed, pun intended.

The Gulf of Mexico of course, surrounds Madame
Lebrun’s resort—home. Lebrun's guests primarily consist of
women who are married to middle-class businessmen who live
in nearby New Orleans. These businessmen do not stay with
their wives during the entire visit; they only come to
visit on weekends. What this all amounts to is the fact
that not only is Madame Lebrun trapped on Grand Isle, but
so are her female guests. Madame Lebrun’s occupation in
reality is to provide a home for legalized prostitution for
married men and their wives. The women are shipped off for
the summer to Madame Lebrun’s resort-home for safe keeping
until their husbands return to the island to be serviced.

The historical background that Chopin used to create
Madame Lebrun's Grand Isle resort-home plays an important

part in the symbolic houses in The Awakening. Madame

35

Lebrun’s resort-home symbolizes for her both freedom and
imprisonment. According to Emily Toth, Kate Chopin in real
life made Grand Isle her home during the hot summer months
as a way to escape the yellow fever epidemic that resulted
in the death of 4,000 New Orleans residents (UKC 80). In
The Awakening, Chopin created a fictional version of The
Krantz Hotel on Grand Isle that she had come to call home.
The Krantz Hotel not only illustrates Chopin’s use of
specific locations but it also adds to her use of symbolic
images because, prior to its use as a summer vacation
retreat for middle class Creoles, it was used to house the
slaves who worked in the sugar factory (SCB 43). According
to Joyce Dyer, Kate Chopin knew, before writing The
Awakening, about the history that surrounded The Krantz
Hotel and therefore encoded it into her novel to illustrate
the changes that occurred after the Civil War. Dyer
includes two photo images of Grand Isle in her book about
Chopin’s life in relation to The Awakening (Dyer 54)7.
Michael Depp, who writes for an internet magazine that
looks at American cultures, writes that during slavery
Grand Isle belonged to “five separate plantations” (Depp
2).8 What was once used to imprison slaves was now used to

isolate White middle class women.

36

When Edna tries to escape from her imprisonment on
Grand Isle, she travels with Madame Lebrun’s son, Robert,
to a nearby island called Chéniere Caminada where she finds
shelter at the home of Madame Antoine. The island of
Chéniére Caminada is another landmark that Chopin uses that
includes a house symbol. Madame Antoine's cottage home
offeres Edna the opportunity to experience how it feels to
rest in peace. Madame Antoine’s home, unlike Madame
Lebrun’s, does not belong to a capitalist society:

Madame Antoine’s cot was at the far end of the

village. She welcomed them with all the native

hospitality, as she would have opened her door

to let the sunlight in. The whole place was

immaculately clean, and the big, four-posted

bed, snow-white, invited one to repose. It

stood in a small side room which looked out

across a narrow grass plot toward the shed,

where there was a disabled boat lying keel

upward. (Chopin 917)

The narrator makes a point of telling us that Madame
Antoine’s home represents that of someone who is native to
the location, which can be interpreted as a sign of
freedom. Madame Antoine refused to learn the English

language. In fact, we are not given the privilege of

37

 

knowing her native language, which goes to show that she
was not about to let the outside culture control her voice
(Chopin 917). Madame Antoine also does not fall into the
category of women full of beauty and charm as seen in the
Creole women on Grand Isle: “She was fat, and walked
heavily and clumsily across the floor” (Chopin 917). The
freedom that Antoine's house provides is demonstrated when
Edna is invited in to nap in one of her bedrooms:

Edna, left alone in the little side room, loosened

her clothes, removing the greater part of them.

“How luxurious it felt to rest thus in a strange,

quaint bed, with its sweet country odor of laurel

lingering about the sheets and mattress!” She

looked at her round arms as she held them straight

up and rubbed them one after the other, observing

closely, as if it were something she saw for the

first time, the fine, firm quality and texture of

her hand, and it was thus she fell asleep. (Chopin
917)
Madame Antoine’s home on the island of Chéniere Caminada
makes it possible for Edna to appreciate the woman that she
has become, unlike on Grand Isle, where her husband gazes
at her as if she were one of his investments:

“You are burnt beyond recognition," he added,

38

 

looking at his wife as one looks at a valuable

piece of personal property that has suffered

some damage. She held up her hands, strong,

shapely hands, and surveyed them critically,

drawing up her lawn sleeves above the wrists.

Looking at them reminded her of her rings, which

she had given to her husband before leaving for

the beach. (CW 882)

These lines confirm that Edna is not blind to how her body
looks. However, it is not until she is in Madame Antoine’s
home that she takes pleasure in feeling and looking at her
own body. Edna’s visit to Madame Antoine’s home is another
one of Chopin’s foreshadowings of Edna’s inability to reach
the freedom that she so desperately desires. The story
about Madame Antoine’s safe haven however, does not begin
with Edna's visit.

Long before writing The Awakening, Chopin wrote a
short story titled “At Chéniére Caminada,” which is one of
her first stories of awakening. Chapter thirteen of The
Awakening is in all actuality an early part of the untold
text of At Chéniére Caminada. Not only do we get to read
about Madame Antoine’s son Tonie who is hardly mentioned in
The Awakening, but we learn that he, like Edna, will end

his life by drowning himself in the Gulf of Mexico. Tonie

39

 

also visits Madame Lebrun’s home on Grand Isle. And, like
Robert and Edna, he foolishly falls in love with one of
Madame Lebrun’s resort home guest who goes back home and
then unexpectedly dies from a common cold (Seyersted 316).
When Edna goes back home to New Orleans to be with her
husband, it no longer feels like home to her. The little
bit of freedom that she tasted at Madame Lebrun’s resort-
home along with her visit to Madame Antoine’s home on the
island of Chéniere Caminada was all that she needed to make
her aware of her imprisoned state of being:
Sailing across the bay to the Chéniere Caminada,
Edna felt as if she were being borne away from some
anchorage which had held her fast, whose chains had
been loosening-had snapped the night before when the
mystic spirit was abroad, leaving her free to drift
whithersoever she chose to set her sails (Chopin
(915).
Chopin’s first short story alludes to why Edna loved her
childhood, not realizing that she was imprisoned when she
stated that “ this animal was born in a cage” (Chopin 37).
Edna, like the bird in “Emancipation,” was unaware of her
imprisonment because she was born into a society that
raised girls to believe that they were the property of

their men. At the very beginning of chapter XVII, the

40

 

narrator alludes to Edna's position in her home by stating
how her husband feels about his property:
He greatly valued his possessions, chiefly
because they were his, and derived genuine
pleasure from contemplating a painting, a
statuette, a rare lace curtain - no matter
what — after he had bought it and placed in
among his household godsg. (Chopin 931)
Edna’s husband was used to treating her as though she were
another one of his household utilities which is why he can
not understand her refusal to stay at home every Tuesday
afternoon to entertain the wives of his business
associates:
Mr. Pontellier scanned the names of his wife’s
callers, reading some of them aloud, with comments
as he read. “’The Misses Delasidas.’ I worked a
big deal in futures for their father this morning;
nice girls; it’s time they were getting married.
‘Mrs. Belthrop.’ I tell you what it is, Edna; you
can’t afford to snub Mrs. Belthrop. Why, Belthrop
could buy and sell us ten times over. His business
is worth a good, round sum to me. You’d better
write her a note. ‘Mrs. James Highcamp.’ Hugh!

The less you have to do with Mrs. Highcamp, the

41

better. ‘Madame Lafarge.” Come all the way from

Carrolton, too, poor old soul. ‘Miss Wiggs,’ “Mrs.

Eleanor Boltons.’” “ Why are you taking the thing

so seriously and making such a fuss over it?” “I’m

not making any fuss over it. But it’s just such

seeming trifles that we’ve got to take seriously;

such things count.” (Chopin 933)
Léonce’s attitude towards Edna gives meaning to the
denotation for the word housewife which, in modern terms as
well as in its original meaning, is nothing more than a
domesticated slave. Edna’s slave-like duties in her
husband’s house include entertaining the local women in the
community who she does not even know. Edna moves out of
her husband’s house because she no longer wants him to
treat her like one of his household possessions. However,
because Edna was born into the patriarchy, when she gets up
the nerve to move out of her husband’s house, she lacks the
courage and the knowledge that will carry her to complete
freedom. Edna demonstrates this when she buys the little
pigeon house that is less than a block away from her
husband’s home.

While the pigeon house offers Edna some freedom from
her husband and children, like the parrot’s cage, its

limited space and location are governed by the patriarchy.

42

 

Robert Lee Mahon, in his essay “Beyond the love triangle:

I

Trios in The Awakening,’ argues also that Chopin uses the
pigeon house to symbolize the birds on Grand Isle, saying:
So while Edna does manage to free herself from

a condition of absolute ornamental servitude,
as symbolized by the caged parrot and mockingbird

of the novel’s first page, she can only fly to *3

her pigeon house. And while pigeons at least function

_”-‘.I-.‘ v

by flying, instead of miming or singing, they are

still domesticated; still, in effect, caged (Mahon 3).

 

IT

As mentioned before, Edna’s pigeon house remains “under
lock and key” because of its location. When Edna tells
Mademoiselle Reisz that she is going to move away from her
husband and children because she no longer wants to be
symbolized as one of his possessions, she tells
Mademoiselle Reisz that, “The house, the money that
provides for it, are not mine ”(Chopin 962). Reisz’s first
reaction is very positive because she imagines that Edna
will move some place where her husband can no longer
control her. “Where are you going?” Reisz asks, “to New
York? to Iberville? to your father in Mississippi?” “Just
two steps away,” laughed Edna"(Chopin 962). When Edna
tells Mademoiselle Reisz about her plans to secretly

relocate to the pigeon house that is only less than a block

43

away, she is not at all impressed, saying, “Your reason is
not yet clear to mem” (Chopin 963). Mademoiselle Reisz
knows that Edna will not succeed in her quest to experience
“ the feeling of freedom and independence” that she wants
to encounter because, like the green and yellow parrot,
Edna’s flight wings are clipped (Chopin 963). If this were
not so, than Edna would be able to fly beyond the perimeter
of her husband’s house. A major reason for Edna’s
inability to succeed on her freedom journey is that she
cannot decide which of the other households to emulate
after she moves out of her husband’s house.

Mademoiselle Reisz’s home offers Edna a safe place to
learn what it will take to succeed in freedom. The
narrator describes Mademoiselle Reisz’s home as a small
apartment with lots of dingy looking windows which she
makes a habit of keeping open so that she can see, the
narrator states, ”the crescent of the river, the masts of
ships and the big chimneys of the Mississippi steamers”
(Chopin 944). The narrator’s description of Mademoiselle
Reisz's home resembles a bird’s nest that is built under a
high cliff safe from its predators: “Some people contended
that the reason Mademoiselle Reisz always chose apartments
up under the roof was to discourage the approach of

beggars, peddlars and callers” (Chopin 944). Edna’s first

44

 

visit to Mademoiselle Reisz's home causes her to feel more
at home there than she does when at home with her husband.
In addition, when Mademoiselle Reisz tells Edna to: “Come
whenever you feel like it; Be careful; the stairs and
landings are dark; don’t stumble,” Edna accepts her offer
(Chopin 946). At this moment in the novel, Edna finds that
Mademoiselle Reisz’s home is the only place where she can
express her true feelings without being made to feel
foolish. Later in the novel, Edna becomes so much at home
in Mademoiselle Reisz’s apartment that she makes herself at
home even when she finds it unoccupied:

She sought refuge with Mademoiselle Reisz, and

stayed there alone, waiting for her, feeling a

kind of repose invade her with the very atmosphere

of the shabby, unpretentious little room. Edna

sat at the window, which looked out over the housetops

and across the river. The window frame was filled

with pots of flowers, and she sat and picked the dry

leaves from a rose geranium. The day was warm, and

the breeze, which blew from the river, was very

pleasant. She removed her hat and laid it

on the piano. She went on picking the leaves and

digging around the plants with her hatpin. (Chopin

980)

45

 

The behavior and attitude that Edna demonstrates in these
lines prove that Mademoiselle Reisz’s home is the only
place in the novel where she feels totally at peace.
However, Chopin contrasts Edna’s refuge home with another
home that will play its part in her tragic end.

In contrast to Mademoiselle Reisz’s home which sits
high above the Mississippi River like the nest of a free
bird, down below stands the home of Adele Ratignolle.
Chopin created Adele Ratignolle’s home to symbolize the
lifestyle of the perfect Creole. Unlike Mademoiselle

Reisz’s home that is placed in a location to deter others

 

from wanting to come in, Adele Ratignolle’s home is located

inside the city where all the action takes place. Adele
Ratignolle’s home is also located just around the corner

from Edna and her husband. In contrast to Mademoiselle

Reisz’s desire to be left alone in her high rise apartment,

the Ratignolle household has a reputation for hosting
private parties:
In the large and pleasant salon which extended
across the width of the house, the Ratignolles
entertained their friends once a fortnight with
a soirée musicalew, sometimes diversified by card-
playing. The Ratignolles’ soirées musicales were

widely known, and it was considered a privilege

46

to be invited to them. (Chopin 936)

One would think that the description that the narrator
gives of Adele Ratignolle’s home would offer Edna a place
to enjoy the company of others. However, Edna’s visits to
Adele Ratignolle’s home often have a negative effect on her
mood rather than lifting her spirits, as is the case when
she spends time at Mademoiselle Reisz’s home. Edna may
have been able to visit Adele Ratignolle in her home but
she never feels at ease.

In fact, each visit leaves Edna feeling worse than she
does before going: “Edna felt depressed rather than soothed
after leaving them. The little glimpse of domestic harmony
which had been offered her, gave her no regret, no longing”
(Chopin 938). It is possible that Edna’s reason for
feeling depressed rather than soothed after visiting her
friend occurred because she realized that her life was no
different from the mockingbird’s: “She thought of Madame
Ratignolle, but knew that her fair friend did not leave the
house, except to take a languid walk around the block with
her husband after nightfall” (Chopin 952). Adele
Ratignolle’s home represents everything that Edna tries to

escape from while living with her husband and children.

47

 

CHAPTER 1: Part Three:

Racial Symbolism
“Madame Ratignolle hoped that Robert would exercise extreme
caution in dealing with the Mexicans ”(Chopin 924)

With today’s increased number of minorities involved
in English literature courses, issues of race are something
that have begun to develop into new areas of cultural
studies. Readers of Per Seyersted’s The Complete Works of
Kate Chopin understand that issues of race were something
that were always on her mind. In fact, because Chopin wrote
so many stories that involved characters that were either
slaves, freed slaves of various shades and colors,
Arcadians, or Creoles, it is no wonder that she became
famous for her Southern prose. Interestingly enough, not
only did Chopin write stories that included minorities, but
she also went as far as to make some of them the
protagonists. For example, in 1892 (five years before The
Awakening) Chopin wrote a post Civil War story titled “Old
Aunt Peggy” that is about a hundred and twenty-five year
old Black female slave who feels too old to accept her
freedom and therefore asks that her former master continue
to care for her until she dies:

Massa, I ain't never gwine to quit yer. I’m

48

 

gittin’ ole an’ feeble, an’ my days is few in

dis heah lan’ o’ sorrow an' sin. All I axes is

a li’le co’ner whar I kin set down an’ wait peace—

ful fu de en.’ (Chopin 193)
It goes without saying that Chopin’s ability to write about
the cultures surrounding her, as demonstrated in Old Aunt
Peggy, resulted from her lifelong experiences involving

racial issues before and after the Civil War. The lines

 

above also demonstrate how Chopin tried to create in print 3-

the pidgin language used by African American slaves. This,

 

however, brings to question whether Chopin was writing
about the lives of minorities because she was a racist or
because she was an opportunist. It is an important
question that has led critics like Emily Toth and Helen
Taylor to argue over Chopin’s use of minority characters.
Taylor’s argument includes the following statements:
I would argue that Chopin’s racism is a central
element in her writing, and cannot be ignored or
simply excused. As with King and Stuart, her
inability or refusal to confront it created
critical problems and severely limited her
achievement. There is clear evidence of
Chopin’s southern orthodox views on race.

(Taylor 156)

49

and,

The Awakening, which is thus the crucial text, is

of considerable importance to this study since it

embodies most of the regional and feminist concerns

of southern women writers. Its unconsciously racist

elements cannot be excused, but its feminist subtext

manages to explore and explode the various meanings

of femininity in the postbellum South. (Taylor 202)
Toth’s response to Taylor's chapter about Chopin takes on a
defensive tone in an article (“Introduction: A New
Generation Reads Kate Chopin”) that tries to discredit
these statements to anyone interested in writing about
racial issues:

Chopin scholars should not be misled by Anna

Shannon Elfenbein’s and Helen Taylor’s books,

both of which contain some errors of fact and

interpretation, especially about Louisiana.

Taylor starts from the assumption that Kate

Chopin should have written more about women of

color and therefore condemns Chopin as a

Southern woman writer who used “unconsciously

racist elements." (Toth 17)
With all due respect, while Emily Toth has proven to be

among the top authorities on Kate Chopin, the preceding

50

 

statements about Helen Taylor’s book uses terms that are
unnecessary. I question why Toth feels that she is the
only one worthy of giving an interpretation of the events
surrounding Chopin’s life, given how much of the language
in her most recent book11 is based on her own
interpretations. Toth’s language also signifies an
inability to accept the possibility that Chopin was a
racist. Toth’s essay demonstrates a common attitude by
Whites who would like to think that racism does not exist.
It is professors like Taylor who demonstrate the need for
non—White students to write about not only critical
articles based on Black authors, but to search beneath the
superficial layers of literature written by Whites who
include racial elements that are important to their
heritage as well.

If Kate Chopin were in fact a racist, it would be hard
to document if you were to base your opinions on reading
her stories without giving some thought to her history
which involved living with slaves and Creoles. This
statement is based on the careful way in which she
presented her minority characters. The narrators in
Chopin's stories never express a personal opinion about the
characters; they merely state the facts. Therefore, as a

reader, all that we have are the characters’ own words and

51

thoughts about their lives. This shows cleverness on
Chopin’s part because it relieves her of any blame for the
roles that her characters play. The fact is, during the
time that Chopin was writing, racism, of course, was a
major problem for freed slaves in the United States.
Racial symbolism in The Awakening is a topic that is
worth exploring because of the minor characters who E‘
represent minorities, many are given no voice at all in the

novel. In The Awakening, fourteen minorities play minor

 

roles. Although these characters play secondary roles,
several are important to the development of the *“
protagonist. Moreover, Chopin uses these characters as a
symbolic reference for Edna. Chopin uses racial issues in
The Awakening as a way to show that Edna’s life is
imprisoned in much the same way as those of the voiceless
minority characters. In order to examine this issue, I
will explore the following racially related symbols that
Chopin uses as a backdrop for Edna’s imprisonment: skin
color, language, the Quadroon Nurse, the Little Black Girl,
and Mariequita. While exploring these topics, it is also
important to keep in mind the green and yellow parrot that
is presented in chapter one of this thesis.

Chopin uses skin color in The Awakening to symbolize

racial stratification. Characters are ranked according to

52

 

the color or shade of their skin with the lighter colors at
the top of the spectrum. In chapter one of The Awakening
when Edna is first introduced, the narrator draws our
attention to her racial stratification, which is placed
into jeopardy by her husband who says to her: “You are
burnt beyond recognition” (CW 882). This description
occurs before the narrator fully characterizes her (CW '
882).

This pre-characterization of Edna occurs because

 

Chopin wanted readers to visualize Edna in relation to the L
minorities in the novel. To say that Edna’s skin color is -
“burnt beyond recognition” implies that she is no longer
accepted or recognized as part of her own race. Edna’s
second characterization, which is located in chapter two,
offers readers another way to visualize Edna outside of her
own race:
Mrs. Pontellier’s eyes were quick and bright; they
were a yellowish brown, about the color of her hair.
She had a way of turning them swiftly upon an object
and holding them there as if lost in some inward
maze of contemplation or thought. Her eyebrows
were a shade darker than her hair. They were thick
and almost horizontal, emphasizing the depth of

her eyes. She was rather handsome than beautiful.

53

Her face was captivating by reason of a certain

frankness of expression and a contradictory subtle

play of features. Her manner was engaging. (CW 883)
Each description that the narrator uses to capture Edna’s
image symbolizes colors that are less than pure. For
example, Edna’s eyes are yellowish brown (commonly known as
hazel) which, although rare in most humans, is a color that
is common in people of mixed race. Moreover, studies have
yet to solve the mystery of their origin (Morris 3).

Edna's eyebrows do not match the color of her hair because
they, like her eyes, are a different shade. Each of Edna’s
shades represent the collective colors that belong to the
other races of people included in the novel. Interestingly
enough, the only characters who best fit Edna’s description
are the Quadroon Nurse (who takes care of Edna’s children)
and Madame Pouponne.

The Quadroon Nurse who the narrator says is “ looked
upon as a huge encumbrance, only good to button up waists
and pantiesm” (Chopin 887), has an ancestry consisting of
Black, Mulatto, and White. While Madame Pouponne, on the
other hand, is from “ma respectable family of mulattos who
had chambres garnies” to let” (Chopin 940). Chopin uses
these characters to represent Edna’s shades of darkness in

order to add profundity to her imprisonment. Moreover,

54

 

these characters are, in many ways, analogous to Edna
because they are categorized and ranked in society
according to their degree of Black skin color.

Those who have read all of Chopin’s works understand
why The Awakening represents a final awakening of her
concerns about racial stratification. Léonce’s concern
about Edna’s darkened skin color is one of Chopin’s final
awakenings about race. In 1892, five years before writing
The Awakening, Chopin published a short story titled

’“3 in ngue, which has since become her most

“Désirée's Baby
famous story involving racial stratification. Edna’s
husband does not want to risk the chance of anyone thinking
that Edna's blood might include Black genes, which is the
attitude demonstrated by Armand (Désirée’s husband) after
seeing his baby's skin color begin to darken. The narrator
makes it clear that Léonce is not so much worried about
Edna getting involved with another man as he is with her
maintaining the color of her skin. This is demonstrated in
the characterization given to Creole husbands:

The right hand jealous of the left! The heart

Jealous of the soul! But for that matter, the

Creole husband is never jealous; with him the

gangrene passion is one which has become dwarfed

by disuse. (Chopin 890—1)

55

 

 

However, he is most fearful of Edna changing her persona as
demonstrated by the tone in his voice when he sees that she
has spent too much time on the beach, becoming “burnt
beyond recognition.” Léonce’s characterization of Edna
links her to the minor Black characters. Léonce’s response
to Edna’s darkened skin echoes the historically charged
attitudes of Southern White Americans who believed in the
One-Drop Rule14 which played its part in creating The Color
Line.

It is not until chapter seven that readers get a
visual description of Edna characterized in a respectable
way:

The lines of her body were long, clean and

symmetrical; it was a body which occasionally

fell into splendid poses; there was no suggestion

of the trim, stereotyped fashion-plate about it.

/ Edna Pontellier (was) different from the crowd.

(Chopin 894)

Once more, Chopin makes a point of differentiating Edna
from everyone else in the novel representing her husband’s
race when she concludes by saying that Edna is different
from everyone else. What is most interesting about
Chopin’s description of Edna as different from the crowd

and beyond recognition, is that she becomes marginalized.

56

 

We know that this is the case for Edna because the narrator
informs us that she is an “American woman, with a small
infusion of French which seemed to have been lost in
dilution” (CW 884). Therefore, we know that in reality,
Chopin uses Edna as a signifier to represent the Anglo-
Saxons living in Kentucky during the post Civil War.
Certainly from these lines, Edna’s marginalization first FT

begins with her French ancestry becoming diluted because of

 

her family’s American roots. Edna's dilution parallels her
to Madame Pouponne because both are one part Anglo-Saxon
and one part something else. Edna’s marginalization
increases with her marriage to Léonce. When Edna marries
Léonce and moves to New Orleans, not only is she pushed to
the outside of her diluted culture in Kentucky, but with
the birth of her sons she creates a race which resembles
the Quadroon Nurse, with her mixed parentage:

Mrs. Pontellier talked about her father’s

Mississippi plantation and her girlhood home in

the old Kentucky blue-grass country. She was an

American woman, with a small infusion of French

which seemed to have been lost in dilution. (Chopin

884) / Mrs. Pontellier, though she had married a

Creole, was not thoroughly at home in the society of

57

Creoles; never before had she been thrown so

intimately among them. (Chopin 889)

When it comes down to racial stratification, Chopin
left no stone unturned because Edna’s diluted culture
causes her to lose sight of the symbols that once were
central to her existence. This concept is not new to
African Americans who represent the descendents of Chopin’s
minority characters. For African Americans, skin color,
along with the ability to speak standard White English, has
played a central role in determining our value in every
governing sector. Symbolism that is associated with Edna’s
culture is illustrated in reflections for example, when
Edna casts her eyes on the sea, she is reminded of the
Kentucky meadows from her childhood:

Edna Pontellier, casting her eyes about, had

finally kept them at rest upon the sea. / The hot

wind beating in my face made me think - without

any connection that I can trace - of a summer day

in Kentucky, of a meadow that seemed as big as

the ocean to the very little girl walking through

the grass, which was higher than her waist. She

threw out her arms as if swimming when she walked,

beating the tall grass as one strikes out in the

water. (Chopin 895 —6)

58

In one place, Chopin goes as far as to use the metaphor
“ocean of waving grass ” as a reminder of Edna's Kentucky
meadow (Chopin 897).

Chopin demonstrates the racially charged attitudes of
Southern Whites during the post Civil War with Edna’s
concern and attitude for her diluted language. Edna’s
concern about language is linked to Chopin’s thoughts about
her own life. Bernard Koloski reminds us of Chopin’s
childhood that resulted in her diluted language:

But because she was bilingual, bicultural, and

sophisticated in her thought she has, unlike most

of her contemporaries, a feel for the ways that

socialization—a person’s language, culture, and

economic and social environment-shapes that

struggle. And because she had known such personal

pain and had lived and worked among so many

different people, she identifies women’s struggles

with those of others who are dominated,

dispossessed, or striving—reading one in the light

of the other, illuminating the yearnings of one by

the experience of the other. (Koloski xii)

Edna, in many ways, serves as a spokesperson for all of the
minorities of the novel. Much like the minorities in the

novel who are sitting on the borders between racial

59

 

stratification and White supremacy, Edna's central
oppositions are located with her separation from her own
culture and her inability to fit in with her husband’s.
The minor Black characters, with their diluted gene
pools, represent the end of the spectrum that is
marginalized, while on the opposite end sit the characters
whose genes remain unadulterated. Language then becomes
the catalyst used by Chopin to convey Edna’s dilution. Of
all the minority characters used to serve as signifiers,
the “little Black girl” comes closest to describing Edna
before her state of dilution. Madame Lebrun hires the
“little Black girl” to operate her sewing machine along
with performing other household errands (Chopin 901). The
little Black girl’s classification as being “Black” alone
proves her to come from a homogeneous culture unlike the
Quadroon or the mulatto. Interestingly enough, Chopin
authenticates the little Black girl’s pureness by using
herself as her own binary opposition, “The little negro
girl who worked Madame Lebrun's sewing-machine was sweeping
the galleries with long, absent-minded strokes of the
broom”(Chopin 913). By redefining the girl from being
Black to being negro (keeping in mind that Black and Negro

meant the same), Chopin draws attention to the racial codes

60

of the time. Michele A. Birnbaum offers another way to
think about this by suggesting that:

The “black,” the “mulatto,” the “quadroon,” and

the “Griffe” are subtle indices to social status

in the White community. Named according to the

ratio of “Negro blood” in their veins, these

representative figures function not as indictments

of an arbitrary colorline, but as reminders and

reinforcements of cultural tiering. (Birnbaum 308)
To better understand the importance of this argument, it is
helpful to look briefly at the historical elements that are
at stake. When Chopin wrote The Awakening (between 1897-
1898), the Jim Crow Laws15 were in effect. Moreover, the
One-Drop rule that applied to Chopin’s life is deeply
rooted in each of the descriptions given to her characters.

This helps in understanding Chopin's purpose for
developing another minority character, Mariequita, which
the narrator describes in this way:

“ma young barefooted Spanish girl / She had a

round, sly, piquant face and pretty black eyes.

Her hands were small / Her feet were broad and

coarse. She did not strive to hide them. (CW 914)
Mariequita’s role in the novel illuminates racial issues

that are important to Edna's characterization.

61

Furthermore, during the period in which the novel was
written, Mariequita16 symbolizes the attitudes of Whites
surrounding the Mexican War“. It is interesting to think
about because for most critics, issues of race usually
focus on the minor Black characters. And while it is
important to examine the roles played by the Black
minorities, it is equally important to direct some
attention to what Phillip Barrish calls the “Mexicanist”18
presence (Barrish 65). Barrish’s criticism of The
Awakening touches on yet another new way to approach
Chopin’s use of racial symbolism, stating:
mit is important, however, to recognize the
differences in how The Awakening treats its African—
American women characters and how it treats
Mariequita, a local “Spanish’ or Mexican girl on
Grand Isle. For instance, we are given no mention
or even hint of active sexual desire on the part
of any African-American women in the book. But
Mariequita, by contrast explicitly regards Edna
as a sexual rival for Robert and, later, for Victor,
with both of whom, as the text openly implies, she has
had some previous sexual connection. (Barrish 67)
To take Barrish’s ideas to another level, historically

Black women were perceived as rivals for White women. This

62

argument is supported by the number of mulattos born in the
South to Black women before and after the Civil War.
According to Emily Toth, Chopin’s father might have
fathered children from one of his slaves, “If Thomas
O’Flaherty fathered the slave children in his household, he
was legally within his rights”(Toth 8). Thus, the question
of why Chopin used Mariequita to play the sexually specific
rival instead of using one of the African American women is
due to her personal ties. Given the fact that Chopin’s
childhood included Blacks from every spectrum of the color
line, while on the other hand, her husband’s culture
included Mexicans, a “race” of people against whom her
father helped to finance a war, it goes without saying why
Mariequita was given the more negative role.

As Barrish points out, Mariequita, unlike the Black
female characters, is not only totally sexual and has had
an affair with both of the Lebrun bothers, but she also
speaks a language that Edna cannot understand. Moreover,
Mariequita's language, unlike Edna’s, is unadulterated.
More importantly, the only ones who seem to be able to
communicate with Mariequita are the Lebrun brothers.

Edna understands that if she is to succeed in getting
Robert Lebrun to take his mind off Mariequita, she must

parrot some of her ways. The most obvious way is witnessed

63

 

 

in Edna’s change in appearance when she moves into the
pigeon house:

Arobin found her with rolled sleeves, working in

company with the house-maid when he looked in during

the afternoon. She was splendid and robust, and

had never appeared handsomer than in the old blue

gown, with a red silk handkerchief knotted at random

around her head to protect her hair from the dust.

(Chopin 968)

In addition, since Edna cannot mimic Mariequita’s language
then she must try to develop a sexual image that is
analogous to hers. Mariequita thus becomes the central
opposition used by Edna, leaving the Black characters with
minor roles in the margins. Keep in mind also that
Mariequita poses a threat because, unlike the Black
characters who are modeled after a race of people that were
once enslaved, she is free to come and go as she pleases in
contrast to the Black characters who are all servants.

As I have tried to demonstrate in this thesis, racial
symbolism is a major device used by Chopin to illuminate
Edna’s struggle towards freedom. In The Awakening, Chopin
demonstrates her society’s racism through Edna’s journey
which concludes in death as she struggles to become free.

For the White population who feel that Edna’s final swim

64

 

which results in death is a sin against nature, they are
among the ones who represent the descendants which caused
this imprisonment and therefore could never identify with
those who took their lives on those slave ships. Surely,
we will never know how strongly Chopin identified with
those slaves that belonged to her father or her husband’s
family, but what we do have is her story about a White ”
woman who has done what so many imprisoned people have
chosen to do which is to chose not to live according to the

rules made by others. Was Chopin a racist? Chopin’s

 

authorities have proven that the only one capable of
solving that question is Chopin. I strongly believe that
Chopin took her thoughts about racism to the grave because
she wanted her readers to interact with the text from their

own point of entry.

 

NOTES
1 “Emancipation. A Life Fable” (Chopin 37).
2 Kate Chopin was very fond of William Shakespeare’s
works. Chopin included some of her favorite passages from
Shakespeare’s works in her Commonplace Book that was given

to her when she turned sixteen by a Sacred Heart nun named

65

 

Madam O’Meara. Shakespeare's influence on Chopin caused her
to title a series of essays after one of Shakespeare’s most
loved comedies “As You Like It” (Chopin 706-718). The
green world of Shakespeare is therefore woven into Chopin’s
theme which relates to Edna’s development that is
associated with her life on Grand Island, which is
synonymous with Shakespeare’s Forest of Ardenne (Greenblatt
1591-1657).

3 John Hope Franklin and Alfred A. Moss, Jr. give a
detailed discprition of how slaves were treated in 1850 in

chapter 8 of their book From Slavery to Freedom. New York:

 

McGraw-Hill, Inc. Seventh Edition 1994.

4 Information about the Double Yellow Head Amazon

Parrot comes from the Avian Avenue web site located at

 

http:///www.avianavenue.com/amazons/dyh.html.

5 Maryville College has a web site called The

Mockingbird Webproject that provides images and information

 

about the life and history of the northern mockingbird,
located at http://www.maryvillecollege.edu
6 Scott Streit writes that during the 18 and 19

century, mockingbirds were captured and used as household
pets which, he writes, “ nearly caused their extinction in
many places across the US” (Streit l). The reason for

wanting to keep a mockingbird resulted from their ability

66

 

to mimic so many different songs. Streit’s web site is
located at
http://www.bird-friends.com/NorthernMockinbird.html

7 The photos that Joyce Dyer includes in her book show
the actual buildings of the Krantz Hotel, which she
believes Chopin used as a model for Madame Lebrun’s resort-
home (Dyer 54).

8 To read more of Depp’s history of Grand Isle, go to
the American Profiles: Celebrating Hometown Life web site,
Editions: 7/22/2001 — 7/28/2001: Grand Isle, LA.
http://www.americanprofile.com

9 The word God is not capitalized in Seyersted’s

edition of The Awakening, however, in The Norton Anthology

 

 

of Literature By Women, edited by Sandra M. Gilbert and

 

Susan Gubar, they use the word “goods” instead of god
(Gilbert 1039). This shows one among many of Chopin’s
misspellings which can either be taken as a mistake, or can
be interpreted as one of her Shakespearean slips or puns.

10 French for a musical evening.

n In Toth’s book, Unveiling Kate Chopin, she

 

frequently uses language that is grounded in
interpretations. Heather Kirk Thomas writes in a review

for the South Atlantic.MOdern Language Association that

67

 

although Toth’s book claims to offer readers mew materials,
“Salient new materials and investigations in the first six
chapters include these inadequately-supported speculations:
in antebellum St. Louis ” (Thomas 1).

12 French meaning, furnished rooms.

B When Desiree and Armand’s baby's skin color takes on
a darker shade, he begins to reject the baby because he
believes that his wife is to blame because he thinks that
she is part Black. This rejection causes Desiree to drown
herself and the baby. Later, Armand discovers that he is
responsible for the baby’s mixed race after finding a
letter written by his dead mother stating that she was
descended from slaves.

14 F. James Davis defines the One-Drop Rule by stating
that, when Jim Crow laws were in effect, “ma single drop of
“black blood” makes a person a black.” It is also known as
the “one black ancestor rule ” (Davis 1). Davis also
focuses on definitions that apply to the terms: mulattos,
colored, Negro, and pure white. The One-Drop Rule is a
term that was only used in the United States by Whites who

were heavily into White Supremacy.

5 According to the Afro-American Almanac, Jim Crow

 

laws began in the late 19u‘century after a elderly Negro

68

 

 

 

 

living in Louisville, Kentucky created a song that included
the words Jim Crow: “Weel about and turn about and do jis
so, Eb’ry time I weel about I jump Jim Crow.” For more

information, refer to the Afro-American Almanac - African-

 

American History Resources Site,

 

http://www.toptags.com/aama/docs/jcrow.htm

m Emily Toth writes that Chopin created Mariequita's
name after her best friend’s (Kitty) aunt Mariquitta.
According to Toth, Kitty told Chopin a story about how much
in love Mariquitta and her husband were but his life ended
tragically when he went off to fight in the Civil War (UKC
19).

17 Refer to the list of important dates located in the
back of this thesis for more information about Thomas
O’Flaherty's (Kate Chopin’s father) support and involvement
with the Mexican War of 1846.

m Phillip Barrish modeled his term “Mexicanist” after

Toni Morrison’s term “Africanist presence” (Morrison 6).

69

 

CHAPTER 2

Symbolic Female Binary Oppositions in
The Awakening

In The Awakening, Chopin includes symbolic female
binary oppositions. It is not obvious to some readers how
this issue relates to questions that are important to a
multi—cultural audience because The Awakening focuses
specifically on the predominant race, which consists of
upper class whites. Attention should be given, however, to
the way in which Chopin uses the spinster motif against
that which is assigned to wives and mothers. Kate Chopin’s
symbolic female binary oppositions illustrate yet another
way to show the difference between freedom and imprisonment
in The Awakening.

Aside from the green and yellow parrot and the
mockingbird, which are the essence of all symbols of
imprisonment, are Chopin’s female characters that sit on
opposite sides of the spectrum with freedom as the central
symbol. On one side of the spectrum sits the musician,
Mademoiselle Reisz, representing spinsterhood, and on the
other side, Chopin gives us the flawless Adele Ratignolle,

who represents the Creole wife and “mother—woman” (CW 888).

70

Each side of this spectrum offers Edna the opportunity to
see that no matter how hard she tries to define her life in
a world that is controlled by men, she can never escape to
freedom. Bonnie St. Andrews believes that each of these
women helps to direct Edna’s struggle towards freedom
stating, “Edna’s two female allies seem diametrical
opposites. Yet, these two contented women, different as
they are from one another and from Edna Pontellier, provide
Edna with knowledge” (Andrews 51). In this chapter of my
thesis, I intend to focus primarily on Edna’s two female
allies to show how they, like the caged birds, demonstrate
why Edna could never reach the freedom that she so desired.
Part one of this chapter examines the symbolism attached to
the spinsterhood motif. Part two of this chapter examines
the symbolism related to Chopin’s wife and motherhood

images.

71

CHAPTER 2: Part One

“The soul that dares and defies }” as symbolized by Chopin’s
regal spinster, Mademoiselle Reisz

Chopin uses spinsterhood in contrast to wife and
motherhood as a symbol to illustrate the price that women
had to pay in order to possess some freedom of expression.
When Chopin introduces Edna as well as her audience to
Mademoiselle Reisz, it is through her music that we
experience part of Chopin’s final awakening prose. And,
let there be no mistake about it that when Mademoiselle
Reisz plays on the piano specifically for Edna a prelude by
Frederic Francois Chopinz, which is said to “ shake(s) a
man!” it is not by accident (Chopin 907).

It is therefore important to observe and question why
Chopin includes the famous Polish composer’s music in her
novel alongside other symbols that involve characters with
artistic abilities. Also included in Chopin’s musical
collection are compositions by Franz von Suppe and
Ferdinand Louis Herold. Art in The Awakening expresses the
battle between freedom and imprisonment for Edna as well as
for the author. Along with Mademoiselle Reisz’s music,

Chopin uses Edna’s painting as a sign to demonstrate the

72

possibility for freedom, but, as demonstrated by Adele’s
characterization, the topic of part two of this chapter,
they are also used as binary oppositions.

Chopin’s choice to include music as one of her
symbolic themes comes from her knowledge and love of music.
Not only did Chopin enjoy listening to classical music and
going to operas, but she even went as far as to write and
publish her own music for piano3. Nancy S. Ellis believes
that music in The Awakening is a reflection of Chopin’s
personal relationship with music:

Kate Chopin’s extensive attention to music is not

just an adjunct to her writing; instead, it evolves

from her background and personal interests and is,
therefore, integral to it. Biographical details of
family and educational influences as well as later
interest provide ample evidence that Chopin was
knowledgeable about music and a talented musician,

especially at the piano. (Ellis 145)

Chopin’s decision to use Frederic Francois Chopin’s
music in The Awakening was not because they shared the same
last name, but rather because of her particular affinity
for his music. Several of Chopin’s preludes have the
ability to stir up all sorts of deep emotions in the

listener. What comes to mind when Robert expresses how

73

Chopin’s music has an ability to “shake(s) a man”, is his
Prelude number 20 in C minor. Prelude No. 20 in C minor is
a very short composition with a lento4 tempo which includes
notes that are very grave and full of darkness. The
measures in the middle become moderately soft5 as they
gradually build up to the final notes that return to the
original somber tones with one single harsh loud cord6
struck at the end.

This structure that Chopin uses in his music parallels
the developments in The Awakening beginning with the
irritating voice of the green and yellow parrot to the
ending where Edna takes her final plunge into the Gulf of
Mexico. The description that Jams Huneker gives of
Chopin’s Prelude No. 20 in C minor supports this argument
with the following statements:

Number 20, in C minor, holds within its bars the

sorrow of a nation. Without doubt it is a sketch

for a funeral march, and of it George Sand must

have been thinking when she wrote that one Prelude

of Chopin contains more music than all the trumpeting

of Meyerbeer. / The melody is enchanting, It arrests

one in ecstasy. A period of contemplation sets in

and the awakening is almost painful. (Huneker V)

74

Moreover, anyone who has ever attempted to play Chopin’s
Prelude No. 20 in C minor might agree that in order to play
it correctly, one must, as Mademoiselle Reisz puts it,
“possess many gifts (and)/ The soul that dares and defies”
(Chopin 946). Thinking back to Mademoiselle Reisz’s
attitude after she had played for Edna one of Chopin’s
Preludes, her primary concern was to know how the music
affected Edna when she asks, “Well, how did you like my
music? / You are the only one worth playing for, Those
others? Bah!” (CW 907). According to Toth and Seyersted,
Chopin was very much interested in understanding the
effects that music had on a person’s emotion, stating:

min The Awakening, Chopin’s Edna is deeply

susceptible to music and also cannot put into words

how the glorious piano playing of Mademoiselle

Reisz plays on her deepest emotions (KCPP 195).
Chopin’s decision to include Mademoiselle Reisz’s position
as the profound musician and spinster adds to Toth’s belief
that The Awakening is Chopin’s “mbest-known portrayal of
the independent woman ”(Toth 658). Mademoiselle Reisz’s
characterization as the profound spinster who has devoted
her entire life to her musical passion demonstrates one of

the ways in which women could obtain some freedom during

75

her time. Pearl L. Brown agrees that during the time in
which Chopin wrote, it consisted of,

ma culture that measures a woman’s worth by her

devotion to family, her self-abnegation, and her

graciousness and charm in performing her social

duties and a man’s worth by the degree of authority

he exercises over his household. (Brown 70)
This helps to clarify why Mademoiselle Reisz cautions Edna
when she says that she wants to awaken her artistic
talents:

To be an artist includes much; one must possess

many gifts-absolute gifts-which have not been

acquired by one’s own effort. And, moreover, to

succeed, the artist must possess the courageous

soul. / The soul that dares and defies. (CW 946)
Mademoiselle Reisz’s statement that one must have innate
talent and the courage to develop it brings to mind an
issue which is encoded into symbolism belonging to
spinsterhood as well as in wife and motherhood. For,
lurking under the surface of these binaries are mysticism
and Christianity, both of which play their part in creating
Edna’s denouement.

However, the first music that is performed in The

Awakening takes place in the first chapter when a set of

76

young female twins, known to us as the Farival twins,
perform on the piano their version of Louis Joseph
Ferdinand Herold’s Zampa (CW 881). All that we know about
these twins is that they play the piano in front of Edna
and other guests in chapter one and in chapter nine. In
chapter nine they also play, when Edna and guests are
listening, a piece by Franz von Suppe titled Poet and
Peasant7. In chapter nine, the narrator also informs us
that they will not allow themselves to become separate from
one another:

Almost every one danced but the twins, who could

not be induced to separate during the brief period

when one or the other should be whirling around

the room in the arms of a man. They might have

danced together, but they did not think of it.

Chopin 904)
Although the twins are among Chopin’s minor characters,
Chopin uses them to symbolize the conflict that Edna has
between feeling trapped in her life as wife and mother in a
culture not of her own and not knowing how to free herself
from it. The twins demonstrate Edna’s conflict in two
ways. The most obvious way is demonstrated by the music

that they play. The less obvious way is demonstrated by

77

the way in which Chopin characterizes them for their
inability to separate from one another.

Louis Joseph Ferdinand Herold’s tragic opera, Zampa,
in many ways prepares us for Edna’s final swim in the Gulf
of Mexico. Zampa is the name of the pirate in the opera
who dies a horrible death by being dragged into the bottom
of the sea by a statue created in the image of the woman
that he betrayed. Edna tells her own version of Zampa when
she sails off to the nearby island of Chéniere Caminada
with Robert Lebrun where they fantasize about finding
pirate’s gold:

(Robert) “ I’ll take you some night in the pirogue

when the moon shines. Maybe your Gulf spirit will

whisper to you in which of these islands the treasures
are hidden — direct you to the very spot, perhaps.”

“And in a day we should be rich!” She laughed.

“I'ed give it al to you, the pirate gold an every

bit of treasure we could dig up. I think you would

know how to spend it. Pirate gold isn’t a thing to

be hoarded or utilized. (CW 916)

As you can see, Chopin uses Herold’s opera as one of the
foreshadows of Edna's tragic ending in the Gulf of Mexico.
Shortly after the Farival twins’ performance of Zampa and

Poet and Peasant, Mademoiselle Reisz plays Frédéric

78

Chopin’s Prelude which causes Edna to have visions about a
man who could very well represent Zampa from Herold’s
opera:

When she heard it there came before her imaginat-

ion 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.

CW 906)
Not only does Mademoiselle Reisz’s music fill Edna with
images of the pirate, but also it causes her to have
visions that are connected to parts of her life:

Another piece called to her mind a dainty young

woman clad in an Empire gown, taking mincing dance-

ing steps as she came down a long avenue between

tall hedges. Again, another reminded her of children

at play, and still another of nothing on earth but

a demure lady stroking a cat. (CW 906)
Mademoiselle Reisz’s music causes Edna to reflect not only
on childish fairy tale dreams, but it also points to a
mystical life. Chopin uses spinsterhood in conjunction
with mysticism. Edna’s vision of a modest lady sitting and
stroking her cat parallels the depictions of the medieval

anchoress, Julian of Norwicha. It is possible that Chopin

79

includes the image which is similar to the anchoress
because of her personal relationship with Kitty Gareschég,
after she became a nun. Kitty Garesché and Chopin
developed a close friendship that began early in their
childhood. It is important to take a moment to analyze
their relationship because it adds value to Chopin’s use of
the spinsterhood motif. While Chopin decided to take the
path in life which included being a wife and mother,
Garesché chose to avoid it by becoming a nun. Had Garesché
chosen not to become a nun, and had she refused to get
married, which, she would have stood the chance of having
been classified as a spinster-woman as demonstrated by
Mademoiselle Reisz’s decision to remain single. Gerri
Brightwell argues that Mademoiselle Reisz’s character
reduces her quality of being female: “Without her
femininity she is denied the prestige of having a husband,
a man who can position her in society as his woman, but
gains the freedom to act as she wishes ” (Brightwell 40).
Although Chopin selected the patriarchal lifestyle, she
could never end her sympathetic relationship with Garesché.
The sadness that Chopin felt over their separation is
transformed into a poem that she wrote in 1900 in
celebration of her friend’s fiftieth birthday:

To the Friend of My Youth: To Kitty

80

It is not all of life

To cling together while the years glide past.

It is not all of love

To walk with clasped hands from first to last.

The mystic garland which the spring did twine

Of scented lilac and the new—blown rose,

Faster than chains will hold my soul to thine

Thro’joy, and grief, thro' life-unto its close.

(Toth 298)
The lines of Chopin’s poem expose the anger and feelings of
loss that Chopin had for her best friend's decision to live
a life that separated them. However, Chopin’s poem also
shows irony because the chains that she refers to are
binding the two of them together, rather than imprisoning
Kitty. Moreover, judging from some of the lines in her
poem, their relationship made it possible for her to learn
a little about the mystical life. And while Mademoiselle
Reisz, on the other hand, is not characterized as a nun or
a mystical figure, she does share some of the
characteristics that Toth and Seyersted state were had by
Garesché:

As a child, Kitty had been an excellent seams-

tress and pianist; as an adult, she was a superb

administrator and intellectual leader, She had

81

a reputation as “a brilliant teacher” /m Recognize-

ing her talents, the Sacred Heart nuns often sent

Kitty to initiate new projects. While her friend

Kate was in Louisiana giving birth to and raising

six children (1870-1884), Kitty was moving around.

(KCPP 298)
The life that Chopin’s best friend lived made it possible
for her to experience a sense of freedom that was accepted
in a patriarchal society such as the one surrounding the
novel. Becoming a nun, however, had to have caused some
tension between Garesché and Chopin because of the
restrictions that nuns had to practice towards friendships10
that may explain the negativity that comes forth in the
poem. Edna’s behavior towards Mademoiselle Reisz
throughout the novel demonstrates a relationship that
includes restrictions controlled by invisible borders.
Edna’s position before Mademoiselle Reisz’s musical
introduction is in a location that is similar to what
Gloria Anzaldua calls the borderlandsn. Anzaldua calls the
space where she lives the borderlands: it is a literal
border between the United States and Mexico, and it is also
a figurative border between heterosexual culture,

patriarchal culture, and Lesbian culture. Edna is

positioned in Chopin’s version of a borderland.

82

As a means of trying to break through these borders,
Chopin uses Mademoiselle Reisz and her music to awaken and
teach Edna how to use all five of her senses. After all,
music is considered a universal language which in fact is
also a non verbal form of communication that was once used
by slaves in the United States. Mademoiselle Reisz hopes
to succeed in bringing Edna to her side of the border with
the use of her musical talent and friendship in the
prospect of leading Edna towards an awakening that will
permit her freedom and a sense of belonging. Nevertheless,
Mademoiselle Reisz’s mystical music and friendship is not
powerful enough to persuade Edna to her side of the border.
For, on the other side of the border which serves as a
binary to Mademoiselle Reisz is the lady in white who Edna
calls, “ the fair lady of our dreams” (CW 888). It is
through this lady in white that Edna paints for us the

symbolism of motherhood.

83

CHAPTER 2: Part Two

”12 .

“ the fair lady of our dreams the role of wife and

Mother.

When the narrator introduces the reader to Adele
Ratignolle in chapter six, it is clear that her femininity
is responsible for awakening Edna’s artistic talents
because, when Edna decides to become an artist, she chooses
Adele as her subject:

She had long wished to try herself on Madame

Ratignolle. Never had that lady seemed a more

tempting subject than at that moment, seated there

like some sensuous Madonna, with the gleam of the

fading day enriching her splendid color. (Chopin 891)
Adele Ratignolle makes her entrance long before
Mademoiselle Reisz’s musical introduction, which is why
feminist critic Elaine Showalter declares that Adele is
responsible for Edna’s initial awakening”. Showalter
interprets Edna’s awakening as a journey “ into the world
of female love and ritual on the first step of her sensual
voyage of self—discovery” (Showalter 73). The narrator's
introduction of Adele begins with a very long description

that must be cited in its entirety because it is important

84

to keep in mind in the further examination of the issues

which are presented in this section:
Many of them were delicious in the role; one of
them was the embodiment of every womanly grace and
charm. If her husband did not adore her, he was
a brute, deserving of death by slow torture. Her
name was Adele Ratignolle. There are no words to
describe her save the old ones that have served so
often to picture the bygone heroine of romance and
the fair lady of our dreams. There was nothing
subtle or hidden about her charms; her beauty was
all there, flaming and apparent: the spungold hair
that comb nor confining pin could restrain; the
blue eyes that were like nothing but sapphires;
two lips that pouted, that were so red one could
only think of cherries or some other delicious
crimson fruit in looking at them. / One would not
have wanted her white neck a mite less full or her
beautiful arms more slender. Never were hands more
exquisite than hers, and it was a joy to look at
them when she threaded her needle or adjusted her
gold thimble to her taper middle finger as she
sewed away on the little night-drawers or fashioned

a bodice or a bib. (Chopin 888)

85

It is easy to see why Showalter assumes that Edna’s
awakenings begin here because it is the first time readers
are allowed to experience Edna’s own thoughts with the
assistance of the narrator. The narrator’s portrayal of
Adele creates binary oppositions between the two women that
are associated with their female identity in relationship
to the roles given to wives and mothers living in this
Creole society. Priscilla Leder presumes the Creole
society which surrounds The Awakening enforces codes that
do not offer women an identity of their own and that,

“ women are expected to find fulfillment in the role of
wife and mother” (Leder 100). Adele’s characterization
also serves as a binary opposition for Edna to choose
between the role of wife and mother and that of
Mademoiselle Reisz (i.e. the spinster woman). The
portrayal of wife and mother in The Awakening adds to the
many oppositions and symbols that Chopin uses to illustrate
imprisonment. Oppositions involving the wife and
motherhood motif, the subject on which this final section
is based, symbolize the male supremacy that caused
imprisonment for the early nineteenth century white female.
Wendy Martin calls Chopin’s marriage motif “man extremely
radical, even subversive, view of the institution of

patriarchal marriage and family, in which the power is

86

traditionally held by husbands, not by wives and certainly
not by children” (Martin 5). Martin attributes Chopin’s
need to write about a woman’s desire to free herself from
the chains that bind her to Chopin’s personal need to
freely follow her own dreams.

Beginning with the institution of marriage, it is
already established that Edna's marriage to Léonce did not
develop from a mutual courtship as seen with the two
lovers14 in the novel who are among the minor characters.
The two lovers represent a young love filled with devotion
and passion, neither of which was experienced by Edna
during her courtship to Léonce:

Her marriage to Léonce Pontellier was purely an

accident, in this respect resembling many other

marriages which masquerade as the decrees of Fate.

/ He fell in love, as men are in the babit of do-

ing, and pressed his suit with an earnestness and

an ardor which left nothing to be desired. She

fancied there was a sympathy of thought and taste

between them, in which fancy she was mistaken. /

As the devoted wife of a man who worshiped her,

She felt she would take her place with a certain

dignity in the world of reality, closing the

portals forever behind her upon the realm of

87

romance and dreams. (Chopin 898)

The narrator demonstrates Edna as her husband’s property in
chapter one by stating that Mr. Pontellier looks “mat his
wife as one looks at a valuable piece of personal

property ”(Chopin 882). Moreover, when Mr. Pontellier
chastises Edna for getting a suntan, he realizes that his
personal property has become damaged goods that now more
closely resembles the Black servants than his race of white
Creoles.

Edna was not so much concerned with her darkened skin
until she became fixated on Adele’s body and mannerisms,
thus turning Adele into a central symbol to represent the
perfect Creole wife and mother in a patriarchal culture.
Chopin defines Adele as being the personal property of her
husband primarily through her beautification and
willingness to bear as many children as her husband wanted.
Unlike Edna who is characterized by her husband as being
“burnt beyond recognition,”(Chopin 882) and, by the
narrator, not as beautiful but, “handsome” (Chopin 883)
with hands that are large, and eyebrows that are dark and
thick, Adele symbolizes a queen of love (Chopin 882).
Adele’s body is compared to a trophy upon which her husband

allows others to gaze:

88

Mrs. Pontellier liked to sit and gaze at her fair
companion as she might look upon a faultless Madonna.
(Chopin 890)

And

Madame Ratignolle, more careful of her complexionm

/ She wore dogskin gloves, with gauntlets that

protected her wrists. She was dressed in pure

white, with a fluffiness of ruffles that became

her. The draperies and fluttering things which

she wore suited her rich, luxuriant beauty as a

greater severity of line could not have done.

(Chopin 894-5)

Adele’s body is always covered in shades of white and is
guarded from the sun, unlike Mademoiselle Reisz, who
chooses to always dress in black.

Margit Stange, a historicist working at the University
of California at Berkeley, writes that Adele’s beauty is
used as a sign to demonstrate her husband's wealth and that
she, “mas a wife and mother, is defined by the claims of
others” (Stange 2). As an African American, it is
interesting to read Stange’s investigations into the
history of how white women of the early twentieth century
were not allowed the same freedom as men in either the

private sector or the public sector. Moreover, because of

89

this, Stange incorporates the term white slave into her
tropes, remarking that, “The white “slave” is the most
extreme victim of the property system. She is the mirror
opposite of the self-owning individual usually associated
with market capitalism, the “passive individual”" (Stange
3). It is therefore understood that African American
slaves and their early descendents were not the only ones
to suffer at the hands of the white American male”.

Adele’s husband, who represents the white male
supremacist culture, never has to verbalize his authority
because all of the signs which are used to describe her
symbolize his wealth (in this respect, Adele is nothing
more than her husband’s referent). The most obvious way
that Chopin confirms Adele’s position as property of her
husband is through the continuous childbirths that, in many
ways, make Adele responsible for Edna’s changing attitude
towards her marriage to Léonce and role as mother. This
helps to explain the negative response that Peggy Skaggs
has for Adele’s role in The Awakening:

The most unpleasant aspect of Adele’s character

may also grow out of her failure to accept herself

as a person apart from her mother role. / Adele’s

paradoxical reaction to the childbirth experience

itself, however, implies the most pathetic effect

90

of a woman’s building her entire existence upon

the maternal role” (Skaggs 93)

The “mother—woman” is a term that Chopin incorporates
into the texts to imply Edna's desire to separate herself
from the domesticated women on Grand Isle who she believes
are chained to their children. After watching the mother-
women on Grand Isle, Edna begins to regard motherhood as
just another way for men to keep their women under control:

mMrs. Pontellier was not a mother—woman. The

mother-women seemed to prevail that summer at

Grand Isle. It was easy to know them, fluttering

about with extended, protecting wings when any

harm, real or imaginary, threatened their precious

brood. They were 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. (Chopin 888)

It is also interesting to see how Chopin brings back the
bird image to symbolize binary oppositions between freedom
and imprisonment. The mother-woman with her “fluttering”
wings lacks the same flight wings possessed by the green
and yellow parrot. These lines also show how Edna and
Adele sit at opposite ends of the motherhood spectrum.

Stange believes that what separates Edna’s side of the

91

spectrum from Adele’s is her unwillingness to give up her
identity: “Unlike Adele, Edna does not embrace the role.
Her motherhood seems arbitrary, externally imposed, and
unwilled, “a responsibility which she had blindly assumed””
(Stange 29). In all actuality, Edna’s relationship with
her children represented one that would allow them to
become independent adults:

She was fond of her children in an uneven,

impulsive way. She would sometimes gather them

passionately to her heart: she would sometimes

forget them. The year before they had spent part

of the summer with their grandmother Pontellierm

/ Feeling secure regarding their happiness and

welfare, she did not miss them except with an

occasional intense longing. 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. (Chopin 899)
Edna did not accept the role of mother—woman because of her
determination to keep her own identity. In many ways,
Edna’s love for her children and eagerness to set them free
more closely resembles the characteristics of a real bird

than those which are shown by Adele's “protecting wings”

92

(Chopin 888). Anyone who has ever watched a motherbird
care for her chicks know how fast the motherbird tries to
free herself from them so that she can get on with her
life. Adele, on the other hand, cannot envision a life
beyond motherhood because her whole purpose in life focuses
on her pregnancies:

Madame Ratignolle had been married seven years.

About every two years she had a baby. At that

time she had three babies, and was beginning to

think of a fourth one. She was always talking

about her “condition.” Her “condition” was in no

way apparent, and no one would have known a thing

about it but for her persistence in making it the

subject of conversation. (Chopin 889)
Adele’s “condition” and bird-like persona resembles what
Sheila Kitzinger discovered in her studies into the history
of pregnancies in different cultures, the bird goddess
symbol for Europe and North Africa during the Paleolithic
area:

In northern Greece, there is a creation myth in

which Eurynome rises out of Chaos and dances the

sea and sky into being. Then she seizes the

north wind and moulds it in her hands to become

a great serpent which makes her pregnant with

93

all life. She is transformed into a dove and

lays an egg on the waters. The serpent coils

round it and it hatches to give birth to the

whole of nature and human beings. (Kitzinger 81)
Kitzinger’s analysis adds yet another layer to the
symbolism that Chopin uses for the mother-woman motif.
Just before Mademoiselle Reisz awakens Edna with her
performance of Chopin’s prelude, the narrator reveals that
the water in the Gulf of Mexico is having an awakening of
its own: “The moon was coming up, and its mystic shimmer
was casting a million lights across the distant, restless
water”(Chopin 905). Chopin’s bird goddess of the water
also develops a “seductive” voice and order that seduces
Edna into taking her first and final swim into the Gulf of
Mexico (Chopin 892-3). Chopin also includes the image of a
coiled sea serpent in the novel: “The sea was quiet now,
and swelled lazily in broad billows that melted into one
another and did not break except upon the beach in little
foamy crests that coiled back like slow, white serpents”
(CW 908). The serpent’s mystical powers take hold of Edna
and the only one in the novel who almost comes close to
understanding it is Doctor Mandelet: “She reminded him of
some beautiful, sleek animal waking up in the sun” (Chopin

952). Moreover, Chopin reinforces the bird goddess image

94

near the end of the novel to describe Adele during
childbirth:

Her face was drawn and pinched, her sweet blue

eyes haggard and unnatural. All her beautiful

hair had been drawn back and plaited. It lay in

a long braid on the sofa pillow, coiled like a

golden serpent. / Edna began to feel uneasy. /

Her own like experiences seemed far away, unrealm

/ She recalled faintly an ecstasy of pain, the

heavy order of chloroform, a stupor which had

deadened sensation, and an awakening to find a

little new life to which she had given being,

added to the great unnumbered multitude of souls

that come and go. / With an inward agony, with a

flaming, outspoken revolt against the ways of

Nature, she witnessed the scene of torture.

(Chopin 994-5)
The lines above reveal Edna’s state of chaos as she works
to free herself from the role of wife and mother. As you
can see, Edna’s confrontation uses key words (unnatural,
uneasy, unreal, and unnumbered) which deconstruct them-
selves as she attempts to process her feelings about
Adele’s childbirth. Adele's childbirth only reminds Edna

of the life that she is struggling to escape.

95

Adele’s constant discourse with Edna about the duties
of a mother-woman takes away from her appearance as an
erotic woman. Therefore, When Edna tries to paint Adele,
she is unable to capture the “ heroine of romance and the
fair lady of (her) our dreams” which first awaken her
romantic desires that cannot be found within her marriage
(Chopin 888). Adele’s attitude towards motherhood and her
need to lead Edna down that never-ending path changes
Adele's Madonna image into another sign that signifies
imprisonment for Edna. Ultimately, by forcing Edna to
witness Adele giving birth (i.e. her version of the bird
goddess), the birth becomes a major climax in the novel.
Furthermore, when Edna agrees to be at her side, Adele
concludes by reminding Edna to, “”Think of the children /
Oh think of the children! Remember them!”” (Chopin 995).
Edna has already expressed to Adele her need for freedom
and independence: “ she would never sacrifice herself for
her children, or for any one” saying, “I would give up the
unessential; I would give my money, I would give my life
for my children; but I wouldn’t give myselfm” (Chopin 929).
Finally, when Edna thinks again about the freedom and
independence that she would attain after she moves away and
into the pigeon house, the narrator restates that: “ she

had resolved never again to belong to another than herself”

96

(Chopin 963). The narrator has already given a hint to why
Edna associates motherhood with imprisonment in chapter
four by stating that “The little Pontellier boys

(were) making their authority felt” (Chopin 903). To Edna,
the boys’ authoritative behavior represents two more links
of the chains of male—supremacist culture that surround her
life.

As I have demonstrated in this chapter, Chopin
presented Edna with two female figures that are designed to
symbolize binary oppositions between freedom and
imprisonment. Mademoiselle Reisz is unmarried, childless,
an excellent and devoted pianist, lives alone, only wears
cloths that are black, is totally independent and can
freely do whatever she wants. Adele Ratignolle, on the
other hand, is committed to a marriage, is committed to
having several children, wears only white, is not
interested in playing the piano but must play out of her
obligation to her children, and her only joy in life is to
satisfy her husband and children.

It only goes to show that, although Mademoiselle Reisz
has the appearance of being the central symbol for freedom,
the possibility of freedom in The Awakening is always
already penetrated by symbols of imprisonment, hence the

answer to why Edna chooses to commit suicide. Edna’s

97

suicide represents Chopin’s final awakening. Chopin’s
final awakening involved the realization that the only
escape for women who wanted to live their lives equal to
white men placed them in a similar situation as it did for
the first Black Americans living in slavery. Mademoiselle
Reisz and Adele Ratignolle share a common denominator (i.e.
two women living in the same patriarchal society) which
makes them equally subjected to a life of imprisonment
placed at opposite ends of the spectrum. Therefore, what
choice did Edna have but to choose the only true freedom
that was offered? Maria Anastasopoulouusargues that Edna's
tragic end proves that she is not successful in her journey
towards freedom: “The end of the novel, with Edna's implied
suicide, suggests that Edna fails to make the passage”
(Anastasopoulou 19).

As demonstrated in both chapters of this thesis, the
predominant theme in The Awakening focuses on one set of
binary oppositions: imprisonment / freedom. Chopin’s
symbolism relates to the need to free oneself from one’s
oppressors, and proves that she was not in full agreement
with her heritage”. The question which was asked at the
beginning of this thesis (i.e., was Chopin a racist or just
capitalizing on her learned knowledge) is resolved.

Although Chopin never included in any of her personal

98

writings how she felt about the treatment of slaves or
persons outside her own culture, she writes as one who has
felt the emotions associated with imprisonment. The
Awakening also makes it clear that Chopin understood that
the only true freedom from a patriarchal society during
that time was death.

More importantly, Chopin did not see feminism as a
true escape to freedom or else she might have allowed Edna
to follow the path of the spinster woman. Edna did not
follow the path of the spinster; she followed the path of
the slave swimming off to freedom. Toni Morrison believes
that white writers used elements of slavery in their themes
to stress the characters’ need for freedom, stating,
“Nothing highlighted freedom - if it did not in fact create
it — like slavery” (Morrison 38). This issue goes beyond
the comprehension of the culture for which The Awakening
was written, which helps to explain one reason for the
negative reaction of Chopin’s audience. What this all
amounts to is that Chopin’s novel The Awakening, like many
of her other stories, speaks to a larger audience. For
many years, The Awakening has captured the attention of
critics in the United States who represent the white

culture but now it must be taught in ways that highlight

99

the multi-cultural audience who represent Chopin’s final

awakening flight to freedom.

 

NOTES

1 Chapter XXI (Chopin 944)

2 Frederic Francois Chopin was born in 1810 near Warsaw
Poland. Chopin’s mother was Polish and his father was
French. When Chopin became an adult, he left his homeland
by moving to Paris where he perfected his talents as a
pianist. During his early years as a composer, he wrote
Polish music for dancing. Chopin’s life was cut short when
he became affected with tuberculosis. However, before his
life ended, he developed a relationship with novelist
George Sand that lasted ten years. A biography of Chopin
is written by David M. Brin and made available at the

following web site: Classical 102.1 KDFC

 

www.kdfc.com/classical/chopin.shtml

3 In 1888, Kate Chopin composed for the piano a
composition titled “Lilia Polka” which was published by
H.H. Rollman & Company located in St. Louis (KCPP 195).

4 Lento is a musical term that describes a tempo that
is played slowly with a sense of sluggishness.
5 Mezzo piano (mp) is a musical term that describes

something that is played moderately softly.

100

 

6 Fortissimo is a musical term that describes something

played very loudly.

7 Very little is known about Franz von Suppe (1819-

1895), the composer from Yugoslavia. According to J.
Michael Allsen, the Poet and Peasant is said to be one of
his most popular overtures which was performed in a play by
Karl Elmar in 1846. J. Michael Allsen’s notes about Suppe
are located on the internet at:
http://facstaff.uww.edu/allsenjm/MSO/NOTES/WSO/wspAprOO.htm
8 Robert Lentz provides a copy of a work of art that
shows Julian of Norwich sitting at a window and stroking
her cat. According to Dr. Christine Rose, a professor of
medieval studies at Portland State University, cats were
the only companions that anchoresses were allowed to keep

in the anchorhold. Dr. Rose also stated in a classroom

lecture during the fall of 2001, that Julian of Norwich is

 

one of the assigned readings for young novices. If this
was the case for Garesché, she might have shared her
reading list with her best friend, since book reading was
something that they had in common. Robert Lentz’s article
is located at the following web site,
http//www.bridgebuilding.com/marr/gju.html

9 Kate Chopin’s best friend, according to Emily Toth,

lived in Michigan and was titled Mother Kitty Garesché.

101

 

The Michigan chapter of the Academy of the Sacred Heart
(ASH) at that time was located in Detroit Michigan (UKC
103). It is possible that Chopin picked the month of

August as the setting for The Awakening as a tribute to

 

Garesché and because of her feelings about her decision to
become a nun. Chopin's poem to celabrate Garesché's
birthday is dated August 24, 1900 (Chopin 1032).

10 Joan Glisky, I.H.M. explains the rules that applied

to the early nineteenth century Immaculate Heart of Mary
nuns, an order of nuns similar to the AHS. According to
Sister Glisky, close friendships were not permitted for
nuns. Friendships were defined in general as having
personal and private relationships with other women. Nuns
had to conduct visits in groups of three or more to protect
themselves from braking the rules about friendships.
Sister Glisky’s essay, “IHM Stance on Friendship” is
included in Building Sisterhood: A Feminist History of the
Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Syracuse
University Press. 1997 (153-171).

u mRepele. Hable pa' tras. Fui muy hocicona.

Era indiferente las Muchos valores de mi cultura. No me

deje de los hombres. No Fui buena ni obediente.

102

 

Pero He crecido. Ya no 5016 paso toda mi Vida botando las
Costumbres y los valores de mi cultura que me traiciona.
También Recojo las costumbres que por el tiempo se han
provado y las costumbres de respeto a las mujeres. But
despite my growing tolerance, for this Chicana la guerra de
independncia is a constant. (Anzaldua 15)

In the above introduction to chapter two of Gloria
Anzaldua's text, “Movimientos de rebeldia y las culturas
que traicionan,” she expresses how it feels to be
marginalized from her own culture; the Chicanos that live
on the Texas - Mexican border. Anzaldua's marginalization
comes from several obstacles: she is a woman, she is
Chicano, and she is a Lesbian who refuses to conform to
Western values and traditions.

12 Included in the narrator’s characterization of
Adele, chapter IV (Chopin 888).

U Others who suggest that Adele is responsible for
Edna’s initial awakening are Kathleen Margaret Lant and
Anna Shannon Elfenbein. Showalter’s previous theory about
The Awakening states that Edna’s first awakening involving
her romantic desires occurs with her swim in the Gulf of
Mexico (Showalter 43). Lant writes in an essay that Adele

is responsible for Edna’s first awakening as part of “ her

103

 

quest for self-discovery” (Lant 115). Elfendein believes
that although Edna is unable to understand Adele, “ she is
powerfully attracted to Adele as the personification of
romance” (Elfendein 145).

M The two lovers are among the guests staying at
Madame Lebrun’s cottages. Chopin places this couple in the
novel as a symbol of love that is accepted in the society
of Creoles. The young lovers are binary to the lady in
black if you take into account that the lovers symbolize
life and the lady in black symbolizes death.

” Mary E. Papke adds to the discussion about women as
personal property of their husbands in her essay “The
ideology of True Womanhood” stating, “ woman would also
remain at best a dependent, at worst a slave, an object of
property rather than a human being” (Papke (14).

16 Anastasopoulou uses the term “Rites of Passage” to
describe Edna’s journey: a term commonly used in slave
narratives (Anastasopoulou 19).

17 I.e. Southern whites living during and after

slavery.

104

ABBREVIATIONS

CW = Per Seyersted, ed., The Complete Works of Kate Chopin.
Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1969.

 

KCM = Per Seyersted and Emily Toth, Eds. A Kate Chopin
Miscellany. Natchitoches and Oslo: Northwestern State
University Press and Universitetsforlaget, 1979.

 

 

KCPP = Emily Toth, Per Seyersted, and Cheyenne Bonnell,
Eds. Kate Chopin’s Private Papers. Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 1998.

 

DIR = writings appearing in “Impressions,” Kate Chopin’s
1894 reprinted in KCPP.

SCB = Per Seyersted, Kate Chopin: A Critical Biography.
Oslo and Baton Rouge: Universitetsforlaget and Louisiana
State University, 1969.

 

UKC = Emily Toth, Unveiling Kate Chopin. Jackson:
University Press of Mississippi, 1999.

 

105

CHRONOLOGY: Important Historical Dates Relating to

1846*1847

1849—1850

1850

1855

1861

1865

1870

1882

1883-1884

Kate Chopin

The Mexican War. Thomas O’Flaherty is
awarded honorary Captain bars for his
financial contributions that helped supply
troops.

Thomas O'Flaherty testifies on behalf of the
plaintiff, Irene Emerson, in the Second
Circuit Court Case against Dred Scott.

Catherine O’Flaherty (Kate) is born on Feb.
8 in St. Louis.

Captain Thomas O’Flaherty is acknowledged
for being one of the founders of the Pacific
Railroad, and Nov. 1 marks the date for the
inauguration of the St. Louis-Jefferson City
Railroad Station.

Thomas O’Flaherty dies in a train wreck.

The Civil War begins on April 12. George
O’Flaherty, Thomas O’Flaherty's son from his
first marriage to Eliza Faris (died one year
after their marriage) runs off to become a
Confederate solder.

Abraham Lincoln is killed on April 15 and,
in May, the last confederate solders
surrender, marking the end of the Civil War.

Catherine O’Flaherty marries Oscar
Chopin. Kate relocates to New Orleans to
live on her husband’s plantation (out of
their marriage six children are born).

Oscar Chopin dies of malaria.
Kate Chopin is unsuccessful at keeping up
her late husband’s business and therefore

decides to move her family back to St. Louis
to be with her mother.

106

 

1888 Kate Chopin begins her writing career.
1897—1898 Kate Chopin writes The Awakening. In 1899

the Herbert S. Stone & Company publishes it
on April 22.

107

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