The Awakening, and modern contexts

Conveniently enough, this blog manifesto spoke of how we would be using the relationship of the texts we are reading for class and the conversations had in class with gender and society and how it is all interrelated. This specific text, The Awakening, by Kate Chopin, has many, many more reflections of gender, specifically women, and how they were cast in society of the time period, the nineteenth century. It was said to be a “landmark work of early feminism” (wikipedia). It has also been compared to a modern day novel, Fifty Shades of Grey in its sexuality and promiscuity. But why is this book important? We see a woman, Edna Pontellier, who is trying to figure out who she is. She very mistakenly chose a life for herself that she wasn’t prepared for, a life that society wanted for her, that her parents (for the most part) wanted for her, and that perhaps even she had at one point wanted for herself. A life that required her to devote herself to her family, namely her husband and children. And as branded by the title, Edna wasn’t fully “awakened” until she was already so deep in her life that there were very little ways for her to escape her then current living situation, without ruining her life. Edna was awakened to this sexual being and independence that she had never discovered before or even realized was inside of her. It really was unfortunate for her how late she realized this part of her being. But through her eyes, we as readers got to see multiple different roles that women played during the nineteenth century in the American south. We see Edna’s friend Adele living this “ideal” life as a mother-woman who devotes her entire life and time to her husband and children. And we see the opposite, her friend Mademoiselle Reisz, as the spinster character who lived life as a single woman without children. Edna is stuck somewhere in between. She is stuck in this life as someone who is “supposed” to be a mother-woman, yet she now wants the freedom to live her individual life. And she is literally trapped in this situation because her reputation would be soiled for good if she ever took herself out of it. The sad part of her story is that she is just one of many women who were born or thrust into lives that they didn’t particularly like or want to live, but had no other options. Edna’s only option to be free from her life, in her eyes, was to, what we presume as readers, commit suicide. It really makes me wonder what the suicide rate looked like for women in America during the nineteenth century. I actually tried to look up some statistics but couldn’t find anything useful. My guess is that, women have always been strong, and I imagine that most women in these situations, whose lives were put together for them in a way that they didn’t want, just sucked it up and did what they had to do. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the case for Edna Pontellier. However, even though women’s rights have been significantly increased in a positive way to this day, I still think about the amount of trouble both women and men have to go through these days in regards to marriage and family. The divorce rate is significantly higher today than even ten years ago, but divorce hasn’t always been acceptable in society, so of course it is hard to compare divorce rates now to those of even 20 to 30 years ago. That being said, it seems to be more common nowadays for couples to get married because of having children than it is the opposite. Casual sex for men and women is more acceptable in society which leads to higher percentages of children being born out of wedlock, and many people still have the mindset of if they have a child with someone then they have to get married to that person. What I’m essentially saying is that, although women have more rights, I don’t think happiness in marriage has changed a lot since the book was written or the time period it was placed in, which is very saddening. It only makes this novel more relevant than ever in our society today.