Choice

I found our discussion in class today very enlightening and, dare I say, awakening. The one thing that struck me particularly was the comment that this was a coming of age story. I had never thought of The Awakening like that before. To me, it had been more of Edna's rebellion against society, her shrugging off of the confining shackles that the Victorian society of that era had placed on her. I had seen the text as more of her journey to finding her real place in society, to finding herself. The image I had of her was a masculine woman marching with the women's rights activists of the 1960s. But looking back at the text, I realize that she is coming of age in so many different ways. As Edna begins to uncover who she really is, she becomes more irresponsible, even childish. She does the unthinkable: neglects her callers, essentially shunning the society in which she lives. In some ways, I can't help but admire her blatantly disregarding spirit. Even when placed in such a confining community, with rules for everything from what kind of clothes to wear to swim to who to confide in, she is able to shirk it off. She actually has the mind to be able to think for herself and understand that she doesn't necessarily even want to be a mother-woman, let alone a perfect wife. Yet, I can't help resenting her for her childishness. She is a mother, after all, and a wife. Sure, she can have her awakening and find herself; she can do whatever she wants to do, but I often feel that she is so childish and immature that she seems in a dream-like state. She just simply cannot seem to choose between her two worlds: the world in which she lives and the world in which she wants to live. Although "a certain light was beginning to dawn dimly within her," I feel that Chopin emphasizes that Edna is not even ready to see the light, as the light itself "forbids it" (13). Though Chopin seems to be encouraging Edna's awakening, she hints that the awakening itself--the light that is beginning to allow Edna to be cognizant of who she really is--is paradoxically preventing her from awakening. This leads me to question: what is awakening in Edna? Why must she have this awakening? Is it even necessary?
I can by no means answer those questions. I am still swamped by the profundity of Edna's journey: what she notices, how she acts, even how others act towards her. But what I do know is that sleep has something to do with it. To awaken, one must sleep. The Merriam-Webster's definition of sleep is "the natural periodic suspension of consciousness during which the powers of the body are restored." If I think of sleep as the precursor to awakening, then Edna must be in an inactive, unconscious state, and her body powers must be being restored. Edna seems to rebel in a dream-like state. When she rebels, she rebels. When she conforms, she doesn't quite conform, but at least makes the appearance that she is. I gasped when I came to the passage where she stomped furiously on her wedding ring and tumbled the vase. While the wedding ring obviously symbolized her marriage to Leonce, I felt that the meaning of the vase was more complex. The vase seemed to me to symbolize the perfect mother-woman, the woman Edna can never--and does want to ever--be. Like the women surrounding Edna, the vase is glass; it is transparent. The intentions of the other women in the novel are clear: to conform absolutely to the norms and expectations that society has set out for them, and to do their job well. Their greatest desires are to be good wives, to be good mothers. Yet Edna is opaque, almost cloudy. She is unclear of who she wants to be, or even who she does not want to be. Although she appears to not want to be like the other women of the story, why does she become friends with Mme. Ratignolle and put on the airs of being a proper lady? Why even bother? Ah, Edna, please. Choose a future, choose a path. Choose something.