A beautiful
woman, fulfilled by everything a woman would dream of called Edna Pontellier is
quickly introduced to readers by Kate Chopin in The Awakening. Since the
first few chapters, female readers start to think, what is Chopin trying to
tell us, when giving us a character like Edna in a 19th century
based novel? A female protagonist in the early 1800’s is like writing about a
gay African American president in the United States during that same period.
Because women were extremely underestimated during that time, and only until
perhaps the late 1900’s have a handful of women been considered worth admiring.
So as a reader, I
ask myself why is it that Chopin decided to compose a novel about a woman
during the 1800’s, and why wasn’t she successful in her awakening? And I
realize that the reason is because Chopin did not want a Jane Austen novel;
where the main character got exactly what she wanted. Chopin wanted a
historically accurate story where the character failed, because she was ignorant
to what she should have done in the eyes of a XXI century reader. That is why, in the discussions of the novel,
all I could think about to describe Edna’s immature behavior was saying that
she acted like a teenage girl, thinking only of herself, ignoring society’s boundaries,
and failing because she did not manage to change anyone else beside herself
during her awakening.
People often look
for the meaning of what they read. In this case, readers were in search of
something bigger- the meaning of the author’s intention. After hours of
thorough discussion, I find it simple to state that what Chopin did with Edna
Pontellier’s death was no other than a message saying that change must come
slowly, and it must come with the mere purpose to change more than one subject.
Or else that change will be unaccredited, and death will come soon and it will
change nobody. Or else, one becomes Edna.
