The Awakening

Just had to read this one for my lit class. As with all assigned readings, I was reluctant at first, but once I finished it I was thoroughly pleased. I loved reading about Edna and the “awakening” of her true self...the ending was both disappointing and perfect at the same time. Good read.

This was my first feminist lit novel. It was written in 1899 so the language wasn't super accessible to me and it took a little more effort to get to the meat of the story. It featured a lot of luxuriated romantic description and I felt like the plot was really like 50 pages long if you cut away the pages and pages of setting description. Ultimately, this was my first encounter with the drowned self-actualized woman motif and I felt extreme pity for Edna. One of my greatest fears is being discounted or feeling trapped, so I easily sympathized with her. Still, my heart hurt a lot when I finished it and it felt very bleak. I felt like I learned a new perspective from this book, but it didn't have any immediate takeaways - however, I did notice that the feminist themes in the book were limited to affluent white women and the role starkly contrasted with the roles of the Black and Hispanic women in the book. I can't help but wonder if that was intentional as a part of the irony of the story, but given the context, I don't think that would make sense. Overall, I rate it 3/5 (really 3.5) stars because I respect the book for its revolutionary qualities and appreciated the depiction of women's relationships in the 1800s. I wish it didn't make me feel so empty after I finished it, but it was good and made me want to read another novel of similar caliber.

I “read” this via audiobook. The copy I got was free and the story was read by several different readers/volunteers. This was a little annoying as everyone had a different style. One reader gave a Texan accent to a character who everyone else had given a french creole accent to.

At any rate. This book has received mixed reviews and I wasn't sure what to expect. I must say that the book itself was a bit boring for me. It took me a while to get into it.

This is a story of Mrs. Pontellier and her growth as an individual.
Many people have said that they thought this woman to be selfish and that no one felt inclined to feel sorry for her or the fact that she was so unhappy. I think that we have to think about the times. I think anyone can sympathize or understand or try to understand how one might feel only defined as a wife and mother or one that is in a loveless marriage left without options because divorce doesn't exist yet. Mrs. Pontellier married out of expectation and definitely not out of love. She is not motherly to her children and in fact states that she will give up the material things for her children but never herself. This indeed sounds selfish but what can you expect when she herself was never really given love. Also is it selfish to want to hold on to some individuality? Throughout the book she begins to “find” herself and to become more independent by taking a leave of her family for a while. She begins to decide on her own fate. She also happens to fall in love. I don't really call it an affair that she had because honestly nothing happened other than a kiss but that is not without saying she didn't want something to happen. I think the only problem I had with her character is that she was willing to live without her children, she was willing to stay married to a man and use him for his money and resources while willing to take on a lover. Whether it is a man or a woman I just can't agree with any of this. In the end she is just as unhappy if not more than in the beginning and in my eyes lost so much more.

I thought this book was just ok. Ending left me kind of blah. Not sure what I think about Kate Chopin's writing style yet other than blah and I'll most likely read her other short stories to see if they are less blah.