Kate Chopin's "The Awakening," is the Awakening of a Woman's Spirit

If any of you have ever encountered Kate Chopin, it was probably through her most famous short story, The Kiss, which many of us read in middle school. Up until now I was completely unaware that Chopin had written a novel - and what a novel.

Kate Chopin

Perhaps you've never heard of this novel because it is rather boring to most people, some would even say it is god-awful boring. It's not very long; I read the book in two days and it was only 180 iBook pages, which translates to a lot fewer actual pages. I'll admit it was slow sometimes, but the bottom line is, this book is brilliant.

This novel is boring, I suppose, if you aren't one for aesthetic, carefully crafted language. One is reminded of Tinkers somewhat; if you aren't familiar with Tinkers, it was the 2010 Pulitzer Prize winner and assigned reading for many of us. Tinkers is a long, rambly story that often makes no coherent sense, but its beauty lies in the language. It's reminiscent of abstract art in a way; the words are meant to evoke distant, remote emotions that appeal to a person's subconscious fancies rather than to his or her logical side.

Chopin's book isn't that rambly - she stays focused, but the sentences are obviously sculpted with fine precision, no word out of place. She makes a careful point of using just the right adjective to express her point, every time. And her words, like the words in Tinkers, evoke certain feelings, or "fancies," as Poe liked to call them, "that cannot be expressed in words" (See Poe - taken from his only novel, "The Fall of the House of Usher- and coincidentally the exact lyrics to Alan Parson's A Dream Within a Dream). 

But aside from the syntax, what makes this book special?

This book is so brilliant because it captures the heart of feminism without being explicitly feminist whatsoever. In fact, it's not really about feminism, but about breaking free and, to use the title, awakening from a state of mechanical routine, from the state of simply doing what everyone else does because doing so is social convention. You could read this book and not even realize it's feminist - considering Chopin lived during the same time period as her characters, "feminism," hadn't even emerged as a real movement yet. 

The book is not even an outcry for equal rights; it is far from a movement for egalitarianism. It is simply the story of one woman, and how, through not very drastic measures, she found freedom and meaning in a life that was previously set for her, a life that was once destined to be one long bore.

The novel appealed to me directly - at first I had difficulty understanding the setting, because the characters were French, but spoke English (many were Creoles) yet they had African American servants. The time period was also confusing; I thought at first it may have been during the fifties. I eventually discovered that the story takes place in New Orleans, in the very late 1800's, on the dawn of the twentieth century, but this is no matter. What makes the story so powerful is that can appeal to so many women, or even men (in an abstract sense) who have been in the protagonist's position, no matter where they live or what social scene they are a part of.

The book is pretty flat plot-wise, but that's the point. Here's a quick summary; a woman named Edna Pontellier is married to Mr. Pontellier, and has two children. The Pontelliers are on an island for a summer vacation, with more of their friends, including a really annoying woman called Mrs. Ratignolle and her family, and the Lebrun family, which consists of jerk-face Victor, Robert, and their mother. 

Basically very little happens throughout this whole book; Edna married her husband because it seemed to be the right thing at the time, but she doesn't really love him. She falls in love with Robert, who moves to Mexico because he loves her too and knows he can't take her from her husband. She later moves back to her home in the city, and her husband goes away for a few months, while the children go away to their grandmother's. Edna continues to seek freedom from an old woman named Madame Reitz, who is rude, hermit-ish, and plays the piano very well; Edna feels at home with her. Edna decides to abandon household duties, and even moves into another house that she pays for herself. She has an affair with a man named Alcee, but quickly disposes of him, because she doesn't love him. Robert comes back to the city, and they declare their love for each other; but soon, Robert goes away again and the book ends.

That's it plot-wise, folks. Because of the rather slow-moving plot, many denounce this book as horrendously inane and boring, and I'll admit, at times it was slow. But the beauty of this book is, again, within the language and the overall message.

Does anyone remember A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich? That was another short, but seemingly god-awful boring book. The reason that book was so amazing was because it was boring. That book captured an actual day of a Russian convict's life and how strenuously tedious his life was. That book perfectly conveyed how harsh and meaningless life seemed in the Gulag because it described Ivan's boring life down to every single boring detail.

This book is similar in a way - except, the prisoner is a housewife, Edna Pontellier. She's not a prisoner in a conventional sense; she doesn't even suffer abuse from her husband, in fact, her husband loves her and treats her rather well, although he has sexist attitudes which were completely normal for the time period and are still prevalent today. He doesn't beat her, he doesn't force her to do anything, though he disapproves of her actions, but she is still imprisoned, not just by him, but by all of the society around her.

Everything in her life seems very preset, and her life is full of meaningless routine. She is expected to call on visitors, and receive visitors, so as to keep her husband and family in good reputation; she is expected to raise her children and oversee the household and keep it nice and neat. She endures the most stupid and inane comments from her friends/company, every day, all the time, and I'm reminded of many conversations I've overheard when people come to visit my own house. The book embodies the seemingly meaningless life of a housewife who was not suited to be a housewife. 

It's reminiscent of Kimbra's "Settle Down." You may recognize Kimbra from Gotye's hit single, "Somebody I Used to Know." (She is the featured female artist). But her most famous song in native New Zealand, and in Australia, where she is most widely known, was "Settle Down." The video and lyrics to this song demonstrate how the average woman's dream in life is to find a husband, marry him, hold him down, and look perfect to all the neighbors. How the women were trained to be mindless machines who cooked, cleaned, could play the piano and recite the same rhetoric to every caller.

This is why I thought The Awakening was set in the fifties, at first - because the American middle class grew substantially in the fifties, and the time period was peaceful and primarily uneventful. Thus, we often associate the restless housewife with the fifties, and Kimbra's video is definitely fifties.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rz4qzeZZfRc&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Drz4qzeZZfRc  

This book is about a woman who realizes she is more than a housewife. Not that there is anything wrong with being a housewife - being a mother is a noble calling which requires patience, and it's one of the more respectable occupations on earth, so long as you really devote yourself to it. It's the politics that often go with being a housewife - aka, living vicariously through your children and keeping up appearances so that your reputation is clean (making your reputation your #1 goal rather than your family) that annoys me. Unfortunately, the pretentious housewife is a position women have found themselves in for many years. 

Chopin's Edna doesn't one day make a feminist revolution and realize she needs to break the evil shackles of men, like you'd expect the protagonist of a feminist author to do. She slowly realizes, slowly awakens, from the state of "going with the flow-" of marrying because she should, having children because she should, entertaining company because she should- and starting to do what she wanted, what made her free, which means painting, making her own living, listening to piano, speaking honestly, and being with a man she really loves. 

So kudos to Kate Chopin.