{"id":23,"date":"2013-08-21T21:04:53","date_gmt":"2013-08-21T21:04:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/portfolio.snc.edu\/meganbania\/?page_id=22"},"modified":"2020-05-11T19:29:00","modified_gmt":"2020-05-11T19:29:00","slug":"essay1","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/alainasalas.knight.domains\/presentation-portfolio\/essay1\/","title":{"rendered":"This Just In, Women Have Desire: How Edna Pontellier Bashes Gender Stereotypes in Kate Chopin\u2019s The Awakening"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Kate Chopin uses Edna Pontellier\u2019s character to break free of the stereotypes held for women in the 19th century in her novel The Awakening<\/em>. Chopin, a long-time rebel of gender stereotypes herself, uses Edna to depict the captivity of a patriarchal society and how she herself pushes expectations to the wayside. In this essay, I will argue, using examples from the novel, how Edna Pontellier chooses not to follow the expectations set for her as a woman in 19th century society. Despite beginning the novel comfortable in her marriage and unaware of her own feelings and ambitions, Edna\u2019s desires for music, art, sexual satisfaction, and freedom awaken with the people she meets at Grand Isle. Whether it be in the way that Edna finds solace in the free-flowing and emotional piano music of  Mademoiselle Reisz, or in discovering her sexual urges, Edna disregards gender stereotypes of the time that women desire nothing except domesticity by discovering her desires for passion and freedom. Edna goes so far as death in order to achieve these desires, and Chopin\u2019s description of Edna as a desire-driven woman acts as an empowerment to women.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Edna\u2019s time, it was the expectation that women should strive to be the perfect wife to their husbands and the perfect mother to their kids, but Kate Chopin uses Edna\u2019s character and her desire for passion as a counterclaim to this expectation. Barbara Welters describes the standards ideal that women were held to in the nineteenth century in her essay \u201cThe Cult of True Womanhood\u201d:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The attributes of True Womanhood, by which a woman judged her- self and was judged by her husband, her neighbors and society could be divided into four cardinal virtues–piety, purity, submissiveness and domesticity. Put them all together and they spelled mother, daughter, sister, wife-woman. Without them, no matter whether there was fame, achieve- ment or wealth, all was ashes. With them she was promised happiness and power (Welters 152). <\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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Welters\u2019 claim that women were \u201cpromised happiness and power\u201d with true womanhood and would desire nothing else reflected the mindset of the time in which Edna Pontillier lived, but Chopin challenged this mindset in The Awakening. <\/em>Women were expected to only strive for perfect domesticity, yet over the summer at Grand Isle, Edna develops a desire for passion. Edna develops her desire for passion in life after hearing the passion with which Mademoiselle Reisz plays her music, purely to experience the art and the freedom the music allows. Edna does not describe her music as demure or pretty, but rather, \u201cthe very passions themselves were aroused within her soul, swaying it, lashing it, as the waves daily beat upon her splendid body. She trembled, she was choking, and the tears blinded her,\u201d (Chopin 47-48). Mademoiselle’s playing with its \u201cswaying\u201d \u201clashing,\u201d and \u201cbeating\u201d lack all of the pretty and predictable characteristics of domesticity, and represents freedom from Edna\u2019s domesticity with its \u201cpassions.\u201d Mademoiselle Reizs\u2019 passionate music wakes Edna from the slumber of her domestic life and arouses her desires for passion and freedom, unlike Madame Ratignolle who plays music simply as another element of perfect domesticity and, \u201cbecause she and her husband both considered it a means of brightening the home and making it attractive\u201d (Chopin 46). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The arousal of Edna\u2019s desires acts as a message to women that desiring something outside of domestic life is normal and freeing, disproving the idea that women desired nothing but perfect domesticity. This desire of hers is a quality lacking in her marriage with L\u00e9once, which she regards as having \u201cno trace of passion… thereby threatening its dissolution,” (Chopin 40). Edna desires Robert and his love, but since she does not have access to him, she decides to go in search of this missing passion upon her return to New Orleans. The first place Edna finds the passion she desires is in Mademoiselle Reisz’s piano performances, which with their \u201csoulful and poignant longing,\u201d (Chopin 86) stir up great emotions in Edna and only increase her desire for passion even further. Edna’s days at the racetrack serve the same purpose of seeking passion. Edna becomes intoxicated by her success at betting on the horses and is reluctant to come back to her domestic life at home. Edna\u2019s desire for passion does not stop at meaningful music or exciting races, though, and her search eventually leads to her meaningless but sexually charged affair with Alc\u00e9e Arobin. While Edna has no romantic feelings for Alc\u00e9e, she feels a physical attraction to him, satisfying her need for passion. Chopin uses Edna\u2019s affair with Alc\u00e9e Arobin to challenge the stereotype of the time that women did not have passion or sexual desires. According to Barbara Welters, \u201cPurity [is] considered as a moral imperative,\u201d (Welters 156) and \u201cthe purity of women is the everlasting barrier against which the tides of man’s sensual nature surge.\u201d (Welters 156). In this section of her essay, Welters is describing the common thought of the time that men were the only gender that experienced sexual desire, but Chopin uses Edna to demonstrate that this is simply not the case describing Arobin, \u201chis presence, his manners, the warmth of his glances, and above all the touch of his lips upon her hand acted like a narcotic upon her,\u201d (Chopin 100). Chopin uses this scene to emphasize that Edna, and all women, have desire and that \u201cwomen\u2019s sexual apathy was not an innately feminine attribute but rather the result of prudery and repression,\u201d (Showalter 208). By depicting Edna as seeking passion through music, betting, and an affair, Chopin breaks the common stereotype of the time that women desire nothing but perfect domesticity and encourages women to embrace their own passions. Along with a desire for passion, Edna also has a desire for freedom, which further puts her outside of the sphere of domesticity. In Edna\u2019s time, it was thought that a woman should not “feel and act for herself” because “\u2019when, next to God, her husband is not the tribunal to which her heart and intellect appeals-the golden bowl of affection is broken.\u2019 Women were warned that if they tampered with this quality they tampered with the order of the Universe,\u201d (Welter 159). Edna goes against this gender expectation that women must yield to their husband\u2019s authority by disobeying L\u00e9once and making her own decisions. Upon hearing of Edna\u2019s intention to move out of the house, L\u00e9once \u201cwrote her a letter of unqualified disapproval and remonstrance\u2026 He hoped she had not acted upon her rash impulse; and he begged her to consider first, foremost, and above all else, what people would say,\u201d (Chopin 116). Despite L\u00e9once\u2019s wishes that she not carry on with her plan and society’s expectation that she abide by the demands of her husband, Edna carries on with her plans to move into the pigeon house because of her desire for freedom. Along with allowing her to disobey her husband, Edna\u2019s desire for freedom causes her to furth break gender stereotypes by encouraging her to discard her motherly duties. In Edna\u2019s mind, \u201cMotherhood and individuality seem mutually exclusive; thus, Edna’s struggle for autonomous selfhood entails a rejection of her responsibilities as mother\u201d (Schweitzer 162). This separation of motherhood and individuality is what inspires Edna to leave her children with their grandparents despite her desire to be with them. Edna feels that by being a mother, she is sacrificing herself for her children, and herself is the one thing she vowed she would never sacrifice for her kids. Edna\u2019s suicide the end of the story is caused by her contuining desire for freedom not satisfied by disobeying her husbands desires or neglecting her motherly duties. Edna\u2019s desire for freedom from her domestic life disproves gender stereotypes of the time that women only desired perfect domesticity and true womanhood. In putting off her motherly duties, disobeying her husband, and eventually committing suicide because of her desire for freedom, Edna goes disproves the gender stereotype that women only desired perfect domesticity and true womanhood as well as inspire women to embrace their own desires for freedom. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

By desiring passion and freedom, Edna breaks stereotypes surrounding her gender while empowering women to acknowledge and act on their own desires. Edna discovers her desires through the passionate music of Mademoiselle Reisz. She then goes against the expectation that women should stick to the domestic sphere with betting, music, and an affair in search of passion. Along with passion, Edna discovers a desire for freedom and puts aside the expectation that she be a dutiful wife and mother by disobeying her husband and putting off motherly duties. With her desires for passion and freedom, Edna shows that women do indeed have desires other than to be a true woman and domestic wife, and with these desires, she flies  \u201cabove the level plain of tradition and prejudice,\u201d (Chopin 106).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Works Cited and Abstracts<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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  1. Schweitzer, Ivy. \u201cMaternal Discourse and the Romance of Self-Possession in Kate Chopin’s the Awakening.\u201d \u200bBoundary 2<\/em>\u200b, vol. 17, no. 1, 1990, pp. 158\u2013186. \u200bJSTOR<\/em>,\u200b JSTOR, www.jstor.org\/stable\/303221<\/a>.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    Ivy Schweitzer focuses on the romance genre written by female authors including The Scarlet Letter <\/em>and The Awakening. <\/em>She discusses several topics such as Edna\u2019s role as a mother as compared to her \u201cvirgin birth\u201d at the end and the significance of the bird symbolism in the novel. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    1. Showalter, Elaine. \u201cTradition and the Female Talent: The Awakening as a Solitary Book.\u201d Case Studies in Contemporary Criticism<\/em>, 2000, pp. 202\u2013221. <\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

      Showalter describes how Kate Chopin went beyond what any writer before her time had done by writing about women\u2019s sexual and personal emancipation. In the beginning of her career, Chopin followed the literary example of authors before her, but by the time she wrote The Awakening, <\/em>she believed that literary success came from defying tradition. This change closely resembles Edna\u2019s attempts to stay a domestic woman in the beginning of her story and then casting off of those duties as the story progresses. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

      1. Welter, Barbara. \u201cThe Cult of True Womanhood: 1820-1860.\u201d \u200bAmerican Quarterly<\/em>,\u200b vol. 18, no. 2, 1966, pp. 151\u2013174. \u200bJSTOR<\/em>\u200b, JSTOR, \u200bwww.jstor.org\/stable\/2711179\u200b<\/a>.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

        In \u201cThe Cult of True Womanhood,\u201d Barbara Welter claimed that a domestic or true woman should possess four cardinal values: piety, purity, domesticity, and submissiveness. Piety is valued among a woman because, unlike intellectual pursuits, it does not remove a woman from her \u201cproper sphere,\u201d the home along with controlling any desires. A woman must maintain her purity until marriage and must remain committed to her husband. Women are to remain submissive to their husbands as stated by God, and a woman\u2019s rightful place was in the home doing domestic work which included cooking, tending flowers, and needlework. If a woman upholds these cardinal values she is an \u201cideal woman\u201d and is frail and feminine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

        <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

        Kate Chopin uses Edna Pontellier\u2019s character to break free of the stereotypes held for women in the 19th century in her novel The Awakening. Chopin, a long-time rebel of gender stereotypes herself, uses Edna to depict the captivity of a patriarchal society and how she herself pushes expectations to the wayside. In this essay, I … Continue reading “This Just In, Women Have Desire: How Edna Pontellier Bashes Gender Stereotypes in Kate Chopin\u2019s The Awakening”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":12,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"page-full-width.php","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alainasalas.knight.domains\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/23"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alainasalas.knight.domains\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alainasalas.knight.domains\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alainasalas.knight.domains\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alainasalas.knight.domains\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/alainasalas.knight.domains\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/23\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":581,"href":"https:\/\/alainasalas.knight.domains\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/23\/revisions\/581"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alainasalas.knight.domains\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/12"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alainasalas.knight.domains\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}