凱特．蕭邦《覺醒》中的自我追尋與母親制度

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(1)論文名稱：凱特．蕭邦《覺醒》中的自我追尋與母親制度校所組別：國立中山大學外國語文研究所研究生：謝雅菁. 指導教授：鍾正鈞教授. 論文提要：凱特．蕭邦在她的小說《覺醒》中公然挑戰母親制度的意識型態。她呼籲女性應從男性的控制中覺醒：女性不應該以丈夫和孩子來定義自己。她應該被視為獨立的個體，而不是沒有慾望和自我的他者。小說中的女主角愛德娜．龐德利亞醒悟自己和男人一樣有慾望。她決心追尋自我，拒絕再當無私的母親。蕭邦的主張，毫無疑問地，對父權社會來說是種威脅。這本小說出版時即被查禁，而蕭邦的文學生涯也因此被扼殺。本文共分為六章。第一章為導論，簡述各家對這本小說的批評和本文的研究方法。本文以蕭邦對查理．達爾文的性別選擇之反駁及愛德莉恩．瑞奇的《生為女人》來探討母親制度的議題。第二章以瑞奇「兩個母親」的觀點來分析文中三位女主角並且討論男性如何以此操控女性。第三章探討男性以身體來箝制女性及女性身體和她所扮演角色之關聯。男性以女人本分之名將女人拘限於家中，藉此剝奪她的自我和自由。第四章敘述愛德娜不但因感官之樂而找回自己身體的主控權，更因此而找回生而為人應有的自我尊嚴。第五章以瑞奇母親制度的觀點，揭發父權體制掠奪女性人權的真實暴行。第六章是結論，闡述蕭邦並非攻擊家庭制度，只是反對將它視為女性自我實現的唯一途徑。.

(2) Self and Motherhood in Kate Chopin’s The Awakening Abstract. Kate Chopin’s The Awakening challenges the ideology of motherhood. Chopin urges the female to awaken from the male’s domination: she should not define herself in terms of her husband and children. Instead, she should be treated as a separate individual, not other —a creature without desire and self. The protagonist, Edna Pontellier, awakens to find that she has desire like a man. She is determined to obtain her selfhood, and refuses to be a selfless mother. Undoubtedly, Chopin’s assertion is threatening to the patriarchal society. That is the reason why this novel is banned and her literary career is killed. There are six chapters in this thesis. The introduction presents criticism about this novel and my approach to it. I would like to use Chopin’s protest against Charles Darwin’s sexual selection and Adrienne Rich’s Of Woman Born to analyze the issue of motherhood. In the second chapter, I would like to apply Rich’s notion of “two mothers” to the analysis of the three main female characters and to the discussion of the male’s manipulation on the female. The third chapter illustrates the male control over the female through her body and the relation between the female bodies and their roles. Confined to home in the name of womanhood, women are deprived of their identity and freedom. The fourth chapter elaborates Edna’s mastering her own body through sensuality and her achievement in selfhood. In the fifth chapter, I would like to use Rich’s notion of motherhood to reveal the violence of patriarchy, which institutionalizes and dehumanizes women.. The conclusion presents that. Chopin does not intend to attack the institution of the family, but she rejects to regard it as the equivalent of feminine self-fulfillment..

(3) Table of Contents. Abstract…………………………………………………………………………i Chapter. Chapter. I. Introduction……………………………………………………1. II Two Mothers………………………………………………….15. Chapter III Whose Body?…………………………………………………28 Chapter IV Her Own Body………………………………………………..42 Chapter. V Motherhood…………………………………………………..57. Chapter VI Conclusion……………………………………………………76 Works Cited……...……………………………………………………………80.

(4) Chapter One Introduction. Having a group of people at my disposal, I thought it might be entertaining (to myself) to throw them together and see what would happen.. I never dreamed of Mrs. Pontellier making. such a mess of things and working out her own damnation as she did. If I had had the slightest intimation of such a thing I would have excluded her from the company. But when I found out what she was up to, the play was half over and it was then too late. —Kate Chopin, “Aims and Autographs of Authors” (1899). Kate Chopin’s The Awakening is a powerful novel about female sexuality. Barbara C. Ewell says that “[for] Edna, then, to be a self, to have desires, is to be no longer selfless which is the essential condition for women. But to reject that role is to tread an unfamiliar and solitary ground” (163-64). Probably that is the reason why Chopin originally calls the novel “A Solitary Soul.” Published in 1899, The Awakening has aroused a lot of shock and condemnation. St. Louis Republic reports that it is “too strong drink for moral babes and should be labeled ‘poison’” (Eble 7). Larzer Ziff says that it is simply a novel “about the adulterous experiments of a married woman” (qtd. in Allen 225). Even Chopin’s biographer, Daniel Rankin, criticizes it as being “exotic in setting, morbid in theme, [and] erotic in motivation” (Eble 9). In addition to critics, readers also scorn this novel and are not willing to accept it. In “From Public Opinion,” one reader says that “[we] are well satisfied when Mrs. Pontellier deliberately swims out to her death in the waters of the gulf” (Culley 168). Another reader condemns Chopin for choosing “a subject that is unworthy of them, and when she writes another book it is to be hoped that she will choose a theme more healthful and sweeter of smell” (Culley 170). Chopin is deeply hurt by these overstatements. In her native city St..

(5) Hsieh. 2. Louis, libraries refuse to circulate this novel, and The Fine Arts Club denies her membership. Disappointed, Chopin does not continue to write or publish any books. Charles van Ravenswaay interviewes Chopin’s son Felix about her mother’s response toward people’s criticisms. Felix says: “Her second novel, however, created a furor which hurt her deeply . . .She was broken hearted at the reaction to the book” (Dyer 19). Chopin’s daughter Lelia Hattersley also says: “I know how deeply she was hurt by many facts, principally that she never wrote again” (Thomas 38). It is not an American but a French critic, Cyrille Arnavon, who contributes to the revival of The Awakening. He publishes a translation of it entitled Edna, and establishes its importance and value. Finally in the 1950s, the American critics begin to realize the value of The Awakening.. Van Wyck Brooks, in The. Confident Years: 1885-1915 (1952), praises it as “one novel of the nineties in the South that should have been remembered, one small perfect book that mattered more than the whole life-work of many a prolific writer” (qtd. in Dyer 21). Stanley Kauffman makes a strong appeal for the revival of The Awakening. He tells the large readership of New Republic that “[it] is an anachronistic, lonely existentialist voice out of the mid-20th-century” (qtd. in Dyer 22).. Dissatisfied with its long neglect, Kauffman claims that “[to]. discover a novel of such stature in the American past is both a happiness and an occasion for some shame. Not many readers would claim to know all of American literature, but some of us like to think that at least we know the best of it. The Awakening has been too much and too long neglected” (qtd. in Dyer 22). The Awakening anticipates its time and is widely misunderstood by its readers. In “A Forgotten Novel,” Kenneth Eble says that “[one] could add.

(6) Hsieh. 3. that it is advanced in theme and technique over the novels of its day, and that it anticipates in many respects the modern novel” (8). Most critics and readers criticize Edna for her adultery, and consider her as a lascivious woman. Priscilla Allen protests that “[the] fact of Edna’s adultery blinded them to other aspects of the novel” (225). She illustrates that “The Awakening is a far more revolutionary novel than any of the critics have realized. What gives it its shock effect today (for it still has that power) and its relevance is that it is a portrait of a woman determined to have full integrity, full personhood — or nothing” (238).. However, this novel is too pioneering for people to. comprehend at that time. In the following paragraphs, I would like to discuss the most common issues raised by critics to figure out the true reality and relevance of The Awakening. Hugh J. Dawson accuses Edna of her love affair and her refusal to communicate with her husband.. He says that “[Edna] feels herself. surrendering to her own seven-year itch. However much one sympathizes with her, it is impossible to find a scene in which she frankly talks through her difficulties with her husband” (9). It is unfair for Dawson to say that Edna refuses to communicate with her husband. Mr. Pontellier is not a man to communicate with. He simply regards Edna as his personal property and demands that she should be obedient to him. He advises her that a wife should “contrive for the comfort of her family” (55).i In this way, she is deprived of her right to be an individual as she is a woman. As a woman, Edna has to care for others rather than herself. She is supposed to serve her husband as her master and to be submissive to whatever he demands. Edna is very happy when her husband leaves her: “A radiant peace settled upon her when she at least found herself alone” (69). If her husband had not treated her.

(7) Hsieh. 4. as his property, Edna would not have protested by saying that she would not belong to another than herself. When she grows to become herself, he thinks she is not herself. When she talks about the rights of women, he considers her to be mentally unbalanced. Under this condition, there is no way for Edna to discuss her difficulties or communicate with her husband. Dieter Schulz claims that a full awakening requires a double awakening: “The first is a movement from everyday consciousness to a dream world; the second marks the completed initiation, the achievement of an authentic self” (70). He says that Edna does not move to the second stage and she remains in a state of “half-slumber”: “As her senses are awakened, her soul, as it were, sinks into her body” (70). Schulz indicates that though Edna is physically awakened, she is spiritually degenerated. In fact, Edna is not only physically but also spiritually awakened. She has “a feeling of having descended in the social scale, with a corresponding sense of having risen in the spiritual” (89). Eventually, Edna begins to “look with her own eyes; to see and to apprehend the deeper undercurrents of life. No longer was she content to ‘feed upon opinion’ when her own soul had invited her” (89). She realizes herself as a human being, not a dehumanized woman. She claims that “[I] have got into the habit of expressing myself. It doesn’t matter to me, and you may think of me unwomanly if you like” (100). Edna’s physical awakening does not lead to spiritual degeneration. On the contrary, her sensual awakening is a means through which she reaches her selfhood. I agree with Dorothy Goldman’s remarks that “[s]exuality is not its central concern; it is only the catalyst to self-knowledge, the medium through which Edna Pontellier discovers her identity” (48). Barbara C. Ewell points out that to have desires means to have one’s own body. She explains that.

(8) Hsieh. 5. “[w]hat leads Edna to a recognition of that essential core is her sensual awakening, her recognition that she does have desires . . . that her body is her own” (162).. Ewell reveals that women’s bodies are not possessed by. themselves but by someone else.. Owned by men, women are simply. sex-objects of men. She says that “[w]omen are often defined in terms of their bodies —as wombs, as sexual objects and parts —but as bodies that belong to others, the objects of male desire, the passive receptacle of male possession and passion” (162). George Arms points out that “[an] even grimmer irony, of course, is in her awakening to an erotic life not through Robert, whom she truly loves, but through Alcée, whom she uses merely as a convenience” (200). It is wrong for Arms to blame Edna in this way. First of all, Edna cannot reach her physical awakening through Robert since he is away from her on purpose. Second, Arms fails to notice Chopin’s fundamental motive of writing this novel. Before writing The Awakening, Chopin reads Charles Darwin’s The Descent of Man as her references (Bender 461).. Though she agrees to most of his. theories, Chopin disagrees with Darwin about the female’s role in sexual selection. Darwin asserts that the male is mentally and physically superior to the female. In sexual selection, the male is active whereas the female is submissive. The male has desires and the power to select whereas the female has no desires and no power. Through Edna’s sensual awakening, Chopin strongly protests against Darwin’s ideas about women in sexual selection. Edna does have desires and she has the power to select a lover like Alcée Arobin to satisfy her desires. Chopin’s interpretation about women’s sexuality, of course, is very revolutionary at that time. If we do not understand this background, we will not figure out the essential theme of it.. We might.

(9) Hsieh. 6. misunderstand it and regard it as merely a novel about sensuality, adultery, and sexuality. Dr. Dunrobin Thomson praises Edna: “You fancy Edna’s case exceptional? Trust an old doctor —most common.. It is only that Edna was nobler, and took. that last clean swim. The others live. Not all meet Arobin or Robert” (qtd. in Culley 177). He illustrates that “[they] marry a girl, [and] she becomes a mother. They imagine she has sounded the heights and depths of womanhood. Poor fools! She is not even awakened” (qtd. in Culley 177). Under the circumstances, she becomes a victim of the patriarchal society that confines her in womanhood. Dr. Thomson points out that “[the] law, spoken or implied, which governs the upbringing of girls is that passion is disgraceful. It is to be assumed that a self respecting female has it not” (qtd. in Culley 177). The female is supposed to have no desires so that she is doomed to the control of womanhood or motherhood. She will be willing to confine herself to home in childbearing without any questioning. In “The Ending of the Novel,” George M. Spangler says that Edna is defeated by the loss of Robert and thus chooses death. He says: “Yet in the final pages, Mrs. Chopin asks her reader to believe in an Edna who is completely defeated by the loss of Robert, to believe in the paradox of a woman who has awakened to passional life and yet quietly, almost thoughtlessly, chooses death” (209). Spangler does not notice that Edna has undergone some death experiences before her final suicide.. When Edna. learns to swim, she has “a quick vision of death smote her soul, and for a second of time appalled and enfeebled her senses” (28). At the dinner party, Edna appears like a “regal woman” (88). But she tells Arobin: “I feel as if I had been wound up to a certain pitch — too tight —and something inside of me.

(10) Hsieh. 7. had snapped” (88). Reminded by Adèle of the children, Edna feels that “to think of them [the children]; that determination had driven into her soul like a death wound” (106). Leaving Adèle’s house, Edna does not rush into her house to search for Robert. She sits alone on the porch steps to think of the children. Priscilla Allen indicates that “[Edna] has to think about the practical results, for women, of sexual activity (contraception does not figure here); she has to think about giving up her life to that inevitable function” (236). However, Edna does not want to sacrifice her sexual activity because “a life without love and the full (including sexual) expression of it cannot be life for her, nor can her art without a full life be genuine” (Allen 236). Adèle tells Edna to think of “the” children but not “your” children. Chopin intends to let her readers think of the children in general but not merely Edna’s two children. Allen explains that “[she] thinks not only of her boys . . . Adèle’s children, and all the possible offspring of her liaison with Robert. She thinks of childbirth, in short, and of children in general” (236). Suzanne Wolkenfeld accuses Edna of having no strength to live alone. She says that “[Edna] does not possess the strength to live her life alone and is therefore driven to seek the solitary security of death” (245). She also says that Edna’s “[view] of her children as enemies who seek to ‘drag her into the soul’s slavery for the rest of her days’ is the hysterical response of a woman who, compelled by the instinct to return to the unbroken bond with her mother, must perforce renounce her own motherhood” (245-46). It is totally wrong for Wolksenfeld to make the above statements. First, Edna chooses death not out of her vulnerability. She is too much awakened to endure the cruel reality. She tells Doctor Mandelet: “There are periods of despondency and suffering which take possession of me” (105). Though she suffers painfully from her.

(11) Hsieh. 8. awakening, she does not regret at all. She says: “It is better to wake up after all, even to suffer, rather than to remain a dupe to illusions all one’s life” (105). Second, readers at that time tend to regard drowning as a negative behavior. No wonder Wolksenfeld interprets Edna’s drowning as the consequence of her lack of strength to live on. Elaine Showalter says that “[r]eaders of the 1890s were well accustomed to drowning as the fictional punishment for female transgression against morality, and most contemporary critics of The Awakening thus automatically interpreted Edna’s suicide as the wages of sin” (52). Readers also neglect the role of children in the final chapters in The Awakening. Joyce Dyer is quite troubled by most critics’ ignorance of the children in the final scenes: “One wonders how [critics] can explain Chopin’s placing of the birth scene —or the inclusion of it at all —in the story, especially in a novel so artfully and economically structured” (101). The critics fail to notice the connection between the delivery scene and Edna’s suicide. They ignore the role of children, and simplify Edna’s suicide as the loss of her beloved Robert. They thus make “a soap-opera of the novel’s ending” (101). In fact, Edna intends to renounce her female body so that she will no longer suffer from motherhood. Possessing a female body, Edna is destined to be bound in womanhood or motherhood. Priscilla Allen reveals that the female is dehumanized owing to her biological functions. Allen says that “[Edna] is not accepted as representative of the human spirit simply because she is female. As female she must be dehumanized” (229). According to her biological destiny, Edna is “designed solely to fit biological functions, to be sex-partner and mother, mere agent to the needs, sexual and nurturing, of others — the real human beings” (Allen 229). Edna indeed treats her children as her enemies,.

(12) Hsieh. 9. but she does not deny the value of motherhood. She loves her children and admits that they “were a part of her life” (109). She just cannot accept the notion that “women are mothers first and individuals second” (Dyer 106). There are two relevant points in The Awakening: one is sensuality and the other is motherhood.. It is these two issues that make this novel so. controversial and revolutionary.. Neglecting these two issues, one might. misunderstand Chopin’s intention. Here I would like to use Chopin’s protest against Charles Darwin’s sexual selection and Adrienne Rich’s Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution to analyze this novel. Bert Bender says that “[Chopin] read Darwin more closely than did most of her contemporaries, and much more closely than her many interpreters have realized” (459). Darwin’s theory provides her with “a profoundly liberating sense of animal innocence in the realm of human courtship” (Bender 460). That explains why there are quite a few portrayals of animalism throughout The Awakening. However, Chopin does not agree with Darwin about the female inferiority in sexual selection. Like the male, the female is also an individual who has the desires and power to select during the sexual selection. Through Edna, Chopin speaks for women: women are human beings too and deserve to own the same rights as men do. Bender points out that Darwin’s sexual selection contributes to the institution of motherhood as it illuminates “the whole process of that most important function, the reproduction of the species” (186).. Sexual selection is therefore connected with the institution of. motherhood.. Women are confined to home for the perpetuation of the. patriarchal society. Rich says that “[p]atriarchy is the power of the fathers: a familial-social, ideological, political system in which men — by force, direct pressure, or through ritual, tradition, law, and language, customs, etiquette,.

(13) Hsieh. 10. education, and the division of labor, determine what part women shall or shall not play, and in which the female is everywhere subsumed under the male” (57). The institution of motherhood demands that a woman should sacrifice herself for the sake of the race. She is not supposed to possess her own body because her body belongs to the race. In the second chapter, I would like to apply Rich’s notion of motherhood to the analysis of the three main female characters in The Awakening. In the patriarchal society, women are divided into two mothers: the biological mother and the counter-mother.. The biological mother refers to the ideal. mother-woman who is possessed, reduced and controlled by men.. The. mother-woman is supposed to be selfless and to care for her husband and children instead of herself. She is not only trapped in motherhood but is also threatening to the non mother-woman. Adèle Ratignolle represents the typical mother-woman.. The counter-mother refers to the independent unmarried. woman who is free from the bondage of family and children. She refuses motherhood and pursues her goals. Childless, the independent woman fails to contribute to the continuing of the race.. She is free from the male’s. domination, and is considered dangerous to the patriarchal society. Men have hatred toward this kind of strong woman and call her “freak of nature” (Rich 70). Mademoiselle Reisz belongs to the counter-mother. She is portrayed as an unpleasant homely woman despised by men and women because she is not feminine at all. However, she is self-assertive and has the opportunity to develop her career like a man. As for Edna Pontellier, she is beyond the biological mother and the counter-mother. She is neither a mother-woman nor an independent unmarried woman.. Unlike Adèle, Edna is aware of the. institution of motherhood. Unlike Reisz, Edna cannot escape motherhood as.

(14) Hsieh. 11. she is already a mother with two children. Through the alternative roles, women are manipulated by men. If a female is determined to be self-assertive, she has to be childless. If she chooses to be a mother, she has to give up her selfhood. In the third chapter, I would like to illustrate the male control over the female through her body and the relation between the female body and her role. Rich says: “There is nothing revolutionary whatsoever about the control of women’s bodies by men.. The woman’s body is the terrain on which. patriarchy is erected” (55). The male confines the female to home in order to control her body. The home thus becomes “a religious obsession” for the female as she is supposed to concentrate herself on the comfort of the home (Rich 44). Through different portrayals about the three female bodies, Chopin indicates their different corresponding roles toward the patriarchal domination. Possessing the most feminine body, Adèle is the typical sex-object desired by most men.. She is not only beautiful but also tender, maternal, and. self-effacing. She is content to be confined to home and defines herself in terms of her husband and children. She is a conventional mother-woman who is submissive toward the patriarchal society. To put it in another way, Adèle is a person without self-identity. On the contrary, Reisz is far from Adèle. Reisz is the least feminine figure upon whom men look down. She has no man to rely on and life is hard for her. She has to be quarrelsome in order to survive in the patriarchal society. Therefore, she is not so sweet and lovely as Adèle.. Adèle shows her unconditional love toward her children whereas. Reisz never hides her dislike of children. Owing to her sexlessness, Reisz can get rid of the female bondage. She is self-assertive and is the only female who can develop herself like a genuine individual.. As for Edna, she is.

(15) Hsieh. 12. portrayed by Chopin as “handsome” rather than “beautiful.” “Handsome” is a word used to portray both the male and the female. Chopin intends to indicate that Edna transgresses her defined female role for a more neutral one. In the fourth chapter, I would like to illustrate Edna’s mastering her own body through sensuality. Barbara C. Ewell says: “In recognizing that her body is not merely another’s (sexual object) but hers and the subject of her own desire, such a woman also encounters a self” (162). Since the female has been deprived of her own body for a long time, the only effective way she could obtain her selfhood is through the mastery of her own body. The more she can master her body, the more she can become herself. Elaine Showalter says that “[a] healthy woman has as much passion as a man” (40). Like Showalter, Chopin believes that a healthy female does possess desires and passions. In her portrayal of Edna’s desires, Chopin rebels against Darwin’s notion about the female’s submissive role in sexual selection. Adèle is a sexual object of others, not of herself.. Through Adèle, Edna realizes how females are. confined and dehumanized in the name of motherhood.. I would like to. analyze the way Edna strives to find out her desires as well as her ability to master them. This physical awakening leads her to become a complete person. No longer a dehumanized woman, Edna is able to reach a spiritual awakening. In the fifth chapter, I would like to use Rich’s notion of motherhood to discuss the institution of motherhood throughout The Awakening. I would like to analyze how Edna grows to understand the violence of motherhood and her resistance to it.. The patriarchal society can not survive without. heterosexuality and motherhood. Therefore, men constitute motherhood in the name of Nature so that it will not be questioned. Doctor Mandelet says that Nature is “a decoy to secure mothers for the race” (105). Motherhood is.

(16) Hsieh. 13. social rather than physical, and a mother who fails her children is condemned as a social crime.. According to Rich, a woman who is regarded as her. husband’s property is a “raped woman.” A mother with children has to suffer from “the double violence of marital rape” (265). Caring for others instead of herself, a mother is a person without self-identity. Rich says that “[l]ifelong mothering is a denial of her own wholeness” (212). Edna does not want to be a self-denied person. She loves her children, but she does not want to be a mother first and an individual second. She does not want to lose her selfhood for the sake of the children. Finally she realizes that she can deny her social role as a mother, but she can never escape her biological connection with her children. The only way she can preserve her selfhood is to renounce her female body. Otherwise, Edna can never avoid being enslaved physically and spiritually by her children..

(17) Hsieh. Endnote. 14.

(18) Hsieh. 15. Chapter Two Two Mothers. If it were possible for my husband and my mother to come back to earth, I feel that I would unhesitatingly give up every thing that has come into my life since they left it and join my existence again with theirs. To do that, I would have to forget the past ten years of my growth—my real growth. —Kate Chopin’s diary, 22 May 1894 (Seyersted and Toth 92). Per Seyersted uses the terminology of Simone de Beauvoir to portray the three main female characters in The Awakening as the “feminine,” the ‘emancipated,” and the “modern” (qtd. in Black 111). Adèle is the feminine female; Reisz the emancipated female; and Edna the modern female. It is interesting for Seyersted to depict these three females in Beauvoir’s terms. However, Beauvoir’s terms have two defects. First, it is not appropriate to use “emancipated” and “modern” to portray Reisz and Edna. These two terms are very similar whereas Reisz and Edna are quite different. Second, these three terms only function to depict the surface characteristics of the three females. But it fails to reveal the essential factor of motherhood which dominates their lives in the patriarchal society.. Peggy Skaggs says that “[m]otherhood. dominates the lives of both Adèle and Edna” (90). Like Skaggs, most people do not recognize that Reisz is also a victim under the institution of motherhood though she is not feminine at all. I would like to use Adrienne Rich’s terms of two mothers to portray the three females to avoid the above defects. Through the notion of two mothers, we can see clearly that all these three females are under the snare of motherhood. Rich divides women into two mothers: one is the biological mother and.

(19) Hsieh. 16. the other is the counter-mother. The biological mother is the mother-woman who “represents the culture of domesticity, of male-centeredness, of conventional expectations” (247).. The counter-mother often refers to the. independent woman such as “an unmarried woman professor, alive with ideas, who represents the choice of a vigorous work life, of ‘living alone and liking it’” (Rich 247-48). According to Rich, Adèle is the biological mother; Reisz the counter-mother; and Edna beyond the two mothers. Adèle is the typical mother-woman who is trapped in motherhood without being aware of it. Reisz is the independent woman who boldly refuses motherhood. As for Edna, she is neither a mother-woman nor an independent woman. She is aware of motherhood, but she cannot get rid of its domination. Caught in motherhood, Adèle is not only institutionalized as a mother-woman, but is also threatening to the non mother-woman. Adèle is an ideal mother-woman who sacrifices herself for her family. She “[has] been trained and absorbed into caring for others” (Rich 247). That is, she is “a person without further identity, one who can find her chief gratification in being all day with small children, living at a pace turned to theirs; that the isolation of mothers and children together in the home must be taken for granted; that maternal love is, and should be, quite literally selfless” (Rich 22). Adèle always cares for her children, husband, but not herself. She is always busy doing her “diminutive roll of needlework” (15) or “busily engaged in sewing upon a diminutive pair of night-drawers” (10). Joyce Dyer says that “[d]iminutive is a word Chopin commonly, and perhaps somewhat unkindly, associates with the activity of Adèle: the little ones give her life focus and definition, but such absolute and rigid focus represents a diminution of possibility” (41). This statement is an echo to that of Martha Fodaski Black:.

(20) Hsieh. 17. “The limitation of her [Adèle] total immersion in her role” (101). Adèle plays the piano not for herself but for her children: “She was keeping up her music on account of the children, she said; because she and her husband both considered it a means of brightening the home and making it attractive” (24). Doing everything for the sake of her family, Adèle is indeed a person without her own identity. In addition to children, Adèle is totally submissive to her husband. Peggy Skaggs says that “[A]dèle exists only in relation to her family, not in relation to herself or the world” (94). To put it in another way, Adèle defines her role in terms of her children and husband.. When Edna returns from. Chênière Caminada, Adèle is not willing to stay with her though Mr. Pontellier has gone to Klein’s. Adèle is eager to come back home because her husband “was alone, and he detested above all things to be left alone” (39). In order to listen to her husband, she is always “laying down her fork the better to listen, chiming in, [and] taking the words out of his mouth” (54). Needless to say, it seems that “the Ratignolles understood each other perfectly. If ever the fusion of two human beings into one has been accomplished on this sphere it was surely in their union” (54). Black points out that this seemingly domestic harmony is merely the “illusions about the beauty of the family as a ‘holy natural institution’” (102).. Skaggs also reveals that “[this] perfect union. results more from the extinction of Adèle’s individuality than from the fusion of their two identities” (91). No wonder Edna pities Adèle for her “colorless existence which never uplifted its possessor beyond the region of blind contentment” (54). Rich says that “[women] who identify themselves primarily as mothers may seem both threatening and repellent to those who do not, or who feel.

(21) Hsieh. 18. unequal to the mother-role as defined by Chopin” (237). In The Awakening, we can see that Adèle is threatening to both Reisz and Edna. Adèle looks down upon Reisz because she is non-maternal, sexless, and childless. She is “on the most distant terms with the musician [Reisz], and preferred to know nothing concerning her. She had once been almost as emphatic in expressing herself upon the subject as the corner grocer” (57).. Adèle’s “soirées. musicales were widely known, and it was considered a privilege to be invited to them” (53). Reisz is a distinguished pianist; however, she is never invited to Adèle’s soirées musicales. As for Edna, “[so] thoroughly a mother-woman is Adèle Ratignolle that she takes on the role of reminding Edna of her duties as wife and mother” (Jacobs 88). She warns Edna: “In some way you seem to me like a child, Edna. You seem to act without a certain amount of reflection which is necessary in this life. That is the reason I want to say you mustn’t mind if I advise you to be a little careful while you are living here alone. Why don’t you have some one come and stay with you? Wouldn’t Mademoiselle Reisz come?” (91). She also warns Edna to keep a distance from Arobin; otherwise her fame will be ruined. She says that “[some] one was talking of Alcée Arobin visiting you. Of course, it wouldn’t matter if Mr. Arobin had not such a dreadful reputation. Monsieur Ratignolle was telling me that his attentions alone are considered enough to ruin a woman’s name” (91). Fearing Edna to have affairs, Adèle keeps reminding Edna of thinking of the children. According to Rich, Reisz belongs to the counter-mother, the independent unmarried woman.. Her ugly appearance contrasts strongly with Adèle’s. beauty. She is unpleasant, homely and unpopular. When Edna questions one man about Reisz, he replies that he “knew Mademoiselle Reisz a good deal.

(22) Hsieh. 19. better than he wanted to know her” and he “did not want to know her at all, anything concerning her — the most disagreeable and unpopular woman who ever lived in Bienville Street” (56). He is quite happy that “she had left the neighborhood, and was equally thankfully that he did not know where she had gone” (56). Besides, “Mademoiselle Reisz had only disagreeable things to say of the symphony concerts, and insulting remarks to make of all the musicians of New Orleans, singly and collectively” (84). In addition to her rudeness, Reisz “has made herself offensive, especially to the other sex, which is put off by her self-assertion and by what it sees as her tendency ‘to trample on the rights of others’” (Huf 71). Rich says that “[what] we did see, for centuries, was the hatred of overt strength in women, the definition of strong independent women as freaks of nature, as unsexed, frigid, castrating, perverted, [and] dangerous” (70). Reisz is regarded as a “freak” simply because she is a strong independent woman.. Women look down upon her as she is not. feminine at all. Men hate her because she is like a man. In other words, Reisz transgresses her defined female role to a more neutral one.. Her. transgression indicates her elusion from motherhood, which enrages men. In the nineteenth century, it is a terrible risk for a woman like Reisz to have no man to rely on.. Reisz has to be quarrelsome in order to survive in the. patriarchal society. For some reason, Reisz is associated repeatedly with the violets, a flower connected to the “rites of protection against harm” by Sir James Frazer (qtd. in Dyer 94). Joyce Dyer explains that “[in] some strange way, the violets protect and comfort her, and she is dependent on them. She has become quarrelsome, wizened, and disagreeable through the effort of maintaining her independence and assertiveness” (95). Therefore, she is not as lovely as Adèle. Under the protection of her husband, Adèle does not have.

(23) Hsieh. 20. to strive for her sustenance. Reisz, on the contrary, has to work hard to earn her living. She has to be non-feminine, tough, and strong, or she is not able to stand on her own feet. Unlike Adèle, Reisz is not feminine and maternal at all. Adèle loves her children very much. Reisz never hides her dislike of children: “She was dragging a chair in and out of her room, and at intervals objecting to the crying of a baby, which a nurse in the adjoining cottage was endeavoring to put to sleep” (25).. Before leaving Grand Isle, Edna asks Resiz: “It has been a. pleasant summer, hasn’t it, Mademoiselle?” With a shrug, Reisz answers: “Well, rather pleasant, if it hadn’t been for the mosquitoes and the Farival twins” (47). Reisz chooses to be a single woman without children in order to develop her career. She dares to be an independent woman regardless of the social convention and prejudice. She is the only female who possesses “the brave soul” that “dares and defies” (61). She is thus regarded as a dangerous woman in the patriarchal society. Rich says that “[w]oman’s place is the ‘inner space’ of the home; woman’s anatomy lays on her an ethical imperative to be maternal in the sense of masochistic, patient, pacific; women without children are ‘unfulfilled,’ ‘barren,’ and ‘empty’ women” (97-98). Childless, Reisz fails to contribute to the continuing of the race. Reisz is treated as a freak as she rejects motherhood. demented” (79).. Men keep saying that she is “partially. Rich illustrates that “[women] who refuse to become. mothers are not merely emotionally suspect, but are dangerous. Not only do they refuse to continue the species; they also deprive society of its emotional leaven —the suffering of the mother” (169).. Though Reisz possesses her. career and independence, she has to pay for them. Owing to her childlessness, Reisz is able to pursue her goal like a man..

(24) Hsieh. 21. Rich says that “[a] woman may have looked at the lives of women with children and have felt that, given the circumstances of motherhood, she must remain childless if she is to pursue any other hopes or aims” (250). Reisz has to be childless to get rid of the bondage of family; otherwise, she will not have the energy and opportunity to develop her own career. Dyer says that “[it] is important to remember that until very recently most serious women artists have been childless. Critics of women’s literature have often noted that most of the greatest female writers have not borne children” (105). The contemporary poet Mary Jo Salter says that “[the] list of the best women poets in our language . . . is a nearly unbroken catalog of childlessness: Elizabeth Barrett Browning (who had one child, late), Emily Dickinson, Christina Rossetti, Charlotte Mew, Marianne Moore, Louise Bogan, Elizabeth Bishop, May Swenson, [and] etc” (qtd. in Dyer 105-106). Without children, Reisz is able to concentrate herself in creating beautiful music. Edna praises her music as conveying “the abiding truth” (26). Informed that Reisz is going to have a performance, people become excited: “A general air of surprise and genuine satisfaction fell upon every one as they saw the pianist enter. There was a settling down, and a prevailing air of expectancy everywhere” (25). Reisz’s music always arouses people’s enthusiasm and compliment. People say that her music “shakes a man,” and “no one could play Chopin like Mademoiselle Reisz” (26).. Ivy Schweitzer says that “Mademoiselle Reisz is an. accomplished musician who, at the expense of intimacy and attachment, pursues a career and achieves the individuation and autonomy Gilligan defines as masculine” (170).. Schweitzer explains that “[her] position outside of. motherhood and community grants her certain privileges, that is, the masculine privilege to ignore or override the rights of others in the name of a higher,.

(25) Hsieh. 22. abstract end” (170). As for Edna, she is beyond the two mothers. She is neither like Adèle who is caught in motherhood, nor is she like Reisz who escapes from motherhood.. Edna is not a mother-woman because she is determined to. achieve self-actualization. She is also not an independent woman as she is a mother with two children. Under the circumstances, she is destined to drift between these two mothers. Her struggle and suffering in drifting between these two models is the significance of this novel. Thomas Bonner says that “[the] woman caught between the needs of motherhood and self becomes a symbolic concern in The Awakening” (146).. Patricia Hopkins Lattin also. points out that “[during] this awakening Edna moves back and forth between the spheres of influence of these two women, between the mother-woman’s pole of conventional society and family and the childless Mlle. Reisz’s pole of artisthood and personal freedom” (42). Edna tries to model herself on Adèle. We can see that in her symbolic intention to paint Adèle: “Never had that lady seemed a more tempting subject than at that moment, seated there like some sensuous Madonna, with the gleam of the fading day enriching her splendid color” (12). Though Edna’s painting is “a fair enough piece of work, and in many respects satisfying,” she destroys it because it bears no resemblance to Adèle (13). Deborah E. Barker illustrates that “[Edna] does not wish just ‘to try her hand’ at ‘painting’ but to ‘try herself on Madame Ratignolle’” (63). Through Edna’s action of destroying the painting, Chopin indicates that Edna cannot be a conventional mother-woman.. Seeing Adèle’s doing night. garments, Edna “could not see the use of anticipating and making winter night garments the subject of her summer meditations” (10). No wonder Deborah E. Barker says that Adèle “[has] given herself to her children ‘body and soul’”.

(26) Hsieh. 23. (72). Edna tells Adèle that she would give up everything for her children, but would not give up herself. Adèle answers that “[but] a woman who would give her life for her children could do no more than that — your Bible tells you so” (46). The fact is that “the two women did not appear to understand each other or to be talking the same language” (46). They certainly do not talk the same language as they are not the same kind of women. Edna is not able to try herself on Reisz, either. Reisz puts her arms around Edna to see whether her wings are strong: “The bird that would soar above the level plain of tradition and prejudice must have strong wings. It is a sad spectacle to see the weaklings bruised, exhausted, fluttering back to earth” (79). Edna is not able to understand what Reisz means. She says: “I’m not thinking of any extraordinary flights.. I only half comprehend her” (79).. Unlike Reisz, Edna is neither strong nor courageous. Reisz has a secure sense of her own individuality, but her life lacks love, friendship, and warmth. Reisz’s house is “cheerless and dingy” (75). When Edna enters the room, she feels “chilled and pinched” (75). Reisz is very lonely and has few friends. She exclaims: “Ah! Here comes the sunlight!” when Edna comes into her room (75). She is so excited because Edna is the only friend who visits her. We also see that “Reisz took Edna’s hand between her strong wiry fingers, holding it loosely without warmth” (60).. Kathleen Margaret Lant says:. “Mademoiselle Reisz is herself without passion. She does not swim, does not immerse herself in experience, and she is without appetite and desire: ‘She habitually ate chocolates for their sustaining quality; they contained much nutriment in small compass, she said’” (121). That is the reason why “most women would probably prefer living Madame Ratignolle’s partial existence as ‘mother-woman’ to Mademoiselle Reisz’s partial existence as artist-woman”.

(27) Hsieh. 24. (Skaggs 96). Motherhood and selfhood are incompatible at that time. Rich says that “[i]nstitutionalized motherhood demands of women maternal ‘instinct’ rather than intelligence, selflessness rather than self-realization, relation to others than the creation of self” (42). Edna likes painting, which gives her not only a sense of achievement but also a chance for self-actualization. Painting is a means through which Edna finds herself. Chopin says that “[Edna] went up to her atelier —a bright room in the top of the house. She was working with great energy and interest, without accomplishing anything, however, which satisfied her even in the smallest degree” (55). However, Edna is not allowed to regard painting as her self-actualization.. Her husband blames her: “It. seems to me the utmost folly for a woman at the head of a household, and the mother of children, to spend in an atelier days which would be better employed contriving for the comfort of her family” (55).. She dares not defy the. convention while she has to remember her children at the same time. As a mother, Edna has to give up herself for the sake of the children. She is not free and is not permitted to have a full development of her creation. Rich says that “[not] only have women been told to stick to motherhood, but we have been told that our intellectual or aesthetic creations were inappropriate, inconsequential, or scandalous, an attempt to become ‘like men,’ or to escape from the ‘real’ tasks of adult womanhood: marriage and childbearing” (40). In other words, a mother with children is supposed to be selfless. Between her self-actualization and her family, Edna can only choose one.. Mr.. Pontellier says that “[there’s] Madame Ratignolle; because she keeps up her music, she doesn’t let everything else go to chaos. And she’s more of a musician than you are a painter” (55). In fact, Adèle is not a musician at all.

(28) Hsieh. because her music is simply intended to beautify her family.. 25. She is the. genuine mother who does her best to keep her house in perfect order. Patricia Hopkins Lattin says that “[to] ‘think of the children,’ which could well have been a subtitle of the book, overwhelms Edna with the realization that has been nudging her consciousness throughout the novel: she cannot in her society discharge her responsibility toward her children and still live in complete freedom, experiencing self-actualization” (43). A woman’s choice is limited: motherhood or individuation, motherhood or creativity, motherhood or freedom (Rich 160). In the patriarchal society, a woman’s existence intertwines with her maternal nature.. Skaggs says:. “Edna’s sense of herself as a complete person makes impossible her role of wife and mother as defined by her society; yet she discovers that her role of mother also makes impossible her continuing development as an autonomous individual” (111). However, Edna is awakened to realize “her position in the universe as a human being, and to recognize her relations as an individual to the world within and about her” (14). She desires to be a genuine individual who is free to have a sound development.. She is more aware of. self-actualization than Adèle, but is more dependent upon human relationships than Reisz. Unlike Adèle, Edna cannot give up her selfhood for the sake of her family. Unlike Reisz, Edna cannot bear the lonely solitude and lack of romance in her life. The existence of Adèle and Reisz is incomplete to Edna because neither one achieves her full potential as a human being. Lant says that “[Adèle] and Mademoiselle Reisz represent the extremes of personality, which for Edna are impossible.. To choose one of these extremes of. personality as a model is, for Edna, to negate part of herself” (121). Skaggs illustrates that “[Adèle] settles more or less happily for a partial existence as.

(29) Hsieh. 26. ‘mother-woman’; Mademoiselle Reisz settles more or less miserably for a partial existence as artist; only Edna refuses to settle for less than full development as a person” (88). Edna refuses to choose the partial existence of either Adèle or Reisz. Anticipating her time, Edna is not able to become her desired complete individual. She is, therefore, destined to be a tragic heroine. Cristina Giorcelli says that “[a]lthough [Edna’s] spiritual and social quest is not represented as successful, it is regarded as attesting to the New Woman’s awareness of her right to be herself and even, when necessary, to take her own life as the ultimate statement of self-assertion” (110). According to Wendy Martin, “Pontellier” means “one who bridges” (qtd. in Dyer 116). Joyce Dyer says that “[Edna] herself is one whose mission is to begin the painful process of bridging two centuries, two worlds, two visions of gender. So appropriate as a turn-of-the-century piece, The Awakening is about the beginning of selfhood, not its completion” (116). Edna tries to bridge motherhood and selfhood as well as two mothers. She contributes to the beginning of the new female role. She says: “I try to determine what character of a woman I am; for, candidly, I don’t know. By all the codes which I am acquainted with, I am a devilishly wicked specimen of the sex. But some way I can’t convince myself that I am. I must think about it” (79). Edna has to think about and convince herself who she is because she is performing a role of the new woman. She frees herself from the role of the old woman in order to elude the male’s domination. Dyer says that “[she] makes a good beginning toward self-discovery, and she shows us —as well as the century that follows hers —much about the process. She has, as we have seen, freed herself of illusions about marriage, domesticity, and nineteenth-century womanhood” (106). Edna says that “[I] would give up the.

(30) Hsieh. 27. unessential; I would give my money, I would give my life for my children; but I wouldn’t give myself. I can’t make it more clear; it’s something which I am beginning to comprehend, which is revealing itself to me” (46).. Edna is. “beginning to comprehend” her role as a new woman who refuses to give herself for others. No one has the power to deprive Edna of her privilege to be a genuine individual. This assertion is very horrible and dangerous to the patriarchal society. That is the reason why Joseph Urgo calls The Awakening “a prologue to rebellion” (qtd. in Dyer 116)..

(31) Hsieh. 28. Chapter Three Whose Body?. She had lived A sort of cage-bird life, born in a cage, Accounting that to leap from perch to perch Was act and joy enough for any bird. I, alas, A wild bird scarcely fledged, was brought to her cage, And she was there to meet me. Very kind. Bring the clean water; give out the fresh seed. —Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh (1857). Women, in the patriarchal society, are always portrayed as birds locked in the cage. Mary Wollstonecraft says that “[c]onfined then in cages like the feathered race, they have nothing to do but to plume themselves, and walk from perch to perch. It is true they are provided with food and raiment, for which they neither toil nor spin; but health, liberty and virtue, are given in exchange” (qtd. in Black 96). The cage, of course, is the symbol of domestic restriction. The caged bird symbolizes women under patriarchal domination. They are confined to the home in the name of womanhood. Barbara Welter says: “The attributes of True Womanhood, by which a woman judged herself 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” (qtd. in Papke 11).. Women, with the four virtues, are supposed to be innocent,. obedient, and faithful housewives. They naively believe that they will be promised happiness regardless of their loss of freedom and selfhood. In this way, women are imprisoned and manipulated by men. Nietzsche says that.

(32) Hsieh. 29. “[men] have so far treated women like birds who had strayed to them from some height; as something more refined and vulnerable, wilder, stranger, sweeter, and more soulful —but as something one has to lock up lest it fly away” (qtd. in Black 96). Martha Fodaski Black explains that “[man], for his own advantage, relegates woman to the role of pretty entertainer and breeder, and then concludes that her unnatural confinement is natural” (100). In The Awakening, Edna’s ring is a symbol of the female confinement. Mary E. Papke says that “[Edna] responds by looking at her tanned hands, realizes she lacks her wedding rings, which Léonce is keeping safe for her, and submissively puts them back on, putting on her wifehood role as well” (70). Restricted to home, women are not permitted to act elsewhere. Robert White says that “[w]oman, in the cult of True Womanhood,” “was the hostage in the home” (98). That is the reason why Mr. Pontellier does not “permit” Edna to stay out all night and demands she “must” come into the house “instantly” (31). Reconciling to her husband’s order, Edna asks him to come into the house too. Mr. Pontellier simply answers: “Just as soon as I have finished my cigar” (31).. This. indicates that the house is not the right place for men as they are allowed to go wherever they feel like to.. Therefore, men are privileged to have more. freedom than women. Mr. Pontellier does not feel obligated to answer his wife when she asks him whether he will come back for dinner: “He felt in his vest pocket; there was a ten-dollar bill there. He did not know; perhaps he would return for the early dinner and perhaps he would not. It all depended upon the company which he found over at Klein’s and the size of ‘the game.’ He did not say this, but she understood it, and laughed, nodding good-by to him” (5). To compensate for his absence, Mr. Pontellier sends Edna boxes.

(33) Hsieh. 30. with “the finest of fruits patés, a rare bottle or two, delicious syrups, and bonbons in abundance” (8). Ironically, his action of buying favor wins him the compliment that he “was the best husband in the world” (9). Edna is “forced” to “admit that she knew of none better” (9). When Mr. Pontellier is not at home, Edna “breathed a big, genuine sigh of relief. A feeling that was unfamiliar but very delicious came over her” (69). Then she “perambulated around the outside of the house,” and approaches the flowers outdoors “in a familiar spirit, and made herself at home among them” (69). Used to be bound at home, Edna feels “unfamiliar but very delicious” while being free again. Only outside the house does she feels “familiar” and “at home.” No wonder she wants to “destroy something,” (51): She takes off “her wedding ring, flung it upon the carpet,” and “stamped her heel upon it, striving to crush it” (50). Robert White says that “[Edna’s] room and her wedding ring, the ‘glittering circlet,’ are both images of her confinement within her marriage, her imprisonment within the domestic sphere circumscribed for her by her husband” (103).. Unfortunately, Edna is not able to destroy her marital. confinement: “Her small boot heel did not make an indenture, not a mark upon the little glittering circlet” (50-51). When her maid hands on the ring to her, Edna “held out her hand, and taking the ring, slipped it upon her finger” (51). Again as beforehand, Edna is forced to go back to her confinement, the role of a wife. Women are confined to home because they are regarded as belonging to men. Mr. Pontellier looks at his sun-burned wife as “one looks at a valuable piece of personal property which has suffered some damage” (4). He values his possessions “chiefly because they were his,” and “placed it among his household goods” after “he had bought it” (48). Edna, of course, is one of his.

(34) Hsieh. 31. possessions placed among the household goods. Mr. Pontellier advises Edna: “The utmost folly for a woman at the head of a household, and the mother of children, [is] to spend in an atelier days which would be better employed contriving for the comfort of her family” (55). Katherine Joslin says that “[his] point is that he has ‘employed’ her by marrying her and that therefore her time belongs to him and his children.. Edna has no right to a second career,. especially one that takes time away from her family” (173). Adrienne Rich explains that “[w]omen were warned that their absence from home did not only mean the neglect of their children; if they failed to create the comforts of the nest, their men would be off to the alehouse. The welfare of men and children was the true mission of women” (49). Mr. Pontellier awakens Edna when he comes home late from a club. He feels uncomfortable when his wife pays no attention to his conversation: “He thought it very discouraging that his wife, who was the sole object of his existence, evinced so little interest in things which concerned him, and valued so little his conversation” (7). He tells her that their son, Raoul, has a fever. Lighting a cigar as if nothing has happened, Mr. Pontellier reproaches Edna “with her inattention, her habitual neglect of the children” (7). He yells that “[if] it was not a mother’s place to look after children, whose on earth was it?” (7). In fact, he is not even sure whether she “failed in her duty toward their children” as “it was something which he felt rather than perceived” (9). Priscilla Allen analyzes his mind: “I am going to punish you for not paying attention to me. I woke you up to talk and you’re not talking. It is your job to talk when I want to talk” (232). Penetrating her husband’s intention, Edna refuses to answer his questions about their son’s fever.. She just wants to have a good cry for herself: “An indescribable. oppression, which seemed to generate in some unfamiliar part of her.

(35) Hsieh. consciousness, filled her whole being with a vague anguish” (8).. 32. Mr.. Pontellier is a good husband only if he meets “a certain tacit submissiveness in her wife” (55). Otherwise, he will be “devilishly uncomfortable” as long as “she’s got some sort of notion in her head concerning the eternal rights of women” (63). No wonder Edna says that “[a] wedding is one of the most lamentable spectacles on earth” (63). Women are often treated as objects rather than subjects. They are not the subjects of their own, but objects of others.. Therefore, they are easily. manipulated by men to the state of being unenlightened. Susan J. Rosowski says that “[f]airy tales tend to pass quickly over the childhood of would-be princesses; we learn that the girl is good and protected from worldly experience, sometimes by a loving home such as in ‘Sleeping Beauty’ and sometimes by exile as in ‘Snow White’ or ‘Cinderella’” (28). Rosowski explains that “[it] is with adolescence, when girlish loveliness becomes threatening sexuality, that a spell is either cast or takes effect” (28). In The Awakening, Chopin uses the convention of sleep in “Sleeping Beauty” to portray Edna’s unenlightened condition.. Rosowski points out that “[s]leep (or exile) is positive, for it. preserves the rightful princess from worldly knowledge (i.e., experience) until a prince awakens her, at which time she is rewarded with love, marriage, and a privileged life” (28). That is to say, the princess is rewarded with happiness because she is pure and inexperienced.. What the prince desires is her. unenlightened simplicity. Innocent and inexperienced, she will blindly submit herself to her man without questioning and resistance. Of course she will become his personal possession without any awareness. In The Awakening, Edna plays the role of a sleeping princess who awakens to ask “how many years have I slept?” (37). Robert, playing the role of the prince, answers that.

(36) Hsieh. 33. “[you] have slept precisely one hundred years. I was left here to guard your slumbers; and for one hundred years I have been out under the shed reading a book” (37). Robert is left to guard and protect Edna in order to guarantee her innocence. It is very interesting to see the sharp contrast between Edna and Robert. When Edna falls into her slumber, Robert is reading a book nearby. We are also told that Robert “looked at Edna’s book, which he had read; and he told her the end, to save her the trouble of wading through it” (101). All these instances indicate two facts. One is that women are unenlightened whereas men are enlightened. The other is that women ought to be “enlightened” by men to become their possessions. Rich says that “[p]atriarchy would seem to require not only that women shall assume the major burden of pain and self-denial for the furtherance of the species, but that a majority of that species — women —shall remain essentially unquestioning and unenlightened” (43). Otherwise, women will not be obedient and instead will dare to question the authority of their men. The female is reduced to be a possession and an object because she is treated as merely a body. John Carlos Rowe says: “What does it mean to have a body? For Edna, and for Mme. Ratignolle, it is always someone else who possesses your body, and such ‘possession’ already signifies something other than your body: a ‘wife,’ a ‘lover,’ a white sunshade, a sunbonnet, children, [and] heirs” (120). Edna’s mind, before her suicide, is occupied with the image that “there was the hum of bees, and the musky odor of pinks filled the air” (109).. Margaret Fuller, the nineteenth-century feminist, explains:. “Woman is the flower, man the bee. She sights out of melodious fragrance, and invites the winged laborer. He drains her cup, and carries off the honey. She dies on the stalk; he returns to the hive, well fed, and praised as an active.

(37) Hsieh. 34. member of the community” (qtd. in Dyer 105). Drawing an analogy between the flower and the female body, Fuller reveals the unequal relation between men and women. As for the Doctor, woman’s body is “a very peculiar and delicate organism” (64).. He tells Mr. Pontellier that “[most] women are. moody and whimsical. This is some passing whim of your wife, due to some cause or causes which you and I needn’t try to fathom” (64). In other words, the “problems of Edna’s sort result from the ‘peculiar,’ internal organization of the body, the female body. The body is defined by those with an authoritative voice, a univocal utterance of what they consider to be the ‘truth’ of human nature” (Bauer 49). Reduced to selfless bodies, women are not treated as individuals. They are only bodies that belong to their men, their children, and the patriarchal society. In The Awakening, Chopin uses the image of birds to symbolize these three female characters. A green and yellow parrot appears in the very beginning of the novel.. The parrot represents the caged imitator that repeats what its. master says. The caged bird loses not only its freedom but also its identity. Chopin, in her diary, says: “I have no leaning towards a parrot. I think them detestable birds with their blinking stupid eyes and heavy clumsy motions. I never could become attached to one” (qtd. in Dyer 37).. Adèle, the. mother-woman, belongs to the confined nesting bird “fluttering about with extended, protecting wings when any harm, real or imaginary, threatened their precious brood. They were women who idolized their children, worshiped their husbands, and esteemed it a holy privilege to efface themselves as individuals and grow wings as ministering angels” (9). Priscilla Allen says: “Birds in cages signify the spirit bound, wild birds generally signify freedom from earthbound conditions, but the identification of Edna with a bird and with.

(38) Hsieh. 35. the possibility of broken wings comes first from her fellow artist, an ugly bird perhaps but with sound wings” (230). Reisz is the wild bird possessing strong wings to “soar above the level plain of tradition and prejudice” (79). She is thus able to be a strong independent artist who “dares and defies” the patriarchal authority (61). As for Edna, she is a caged bird longing for flight like a wild bird. She does not “flutter” about her “precious brood” with “protecting wings;” but instead she saves her wings for flight (9). For some reason, Edna cannot be like Reisz.. Edna says: “I’m not thinking of any. extraordinary flights. I only half comprehend her” (79). Edna is unwilling to be a caged bird, yet she is not able to be a wild bird. Therefore, she is doomed to be a tragic bird: “A bird with a broken wing was beating the air above, reeling, fluttering, circling disabled down, down to the water” (108). In addition, the female body also indicates its female role in the patriarchal society. In The Awakening, Adèle is the most feminine female desired by most of the men. She is “the embodiment of every womanly grace and charm. If her husband did not adore her, he was a brute, deserving of death by slow torture” (9). She is so perfect that “one would not have wanted her white neck a mite less full or her beautiful arms more slender” (9). In short, “there was nothing subtle or hidden about her charms; her beauty was all there, flaming and apparent” (9). Adèle’s beauty is stereotypical: “There are no words to describe her save the old ones that have served so often to picture the bygone heroine of romance and the fair lady of our dreams” (9). Chopin portrays her with romantic and trite terms: “The spun-gold hair that comb nor confining pin could restrain; the blue eyes that were like nothing but sapphires; two lips that pouted, that were so red one could only think of cherries or some other delicious crimson fruit in looking at them” (9). Lawrence Thornton says that.

(39) Hsieh. 36. “[the] old words have created a woman who fulfills ‘our’ expectation, and these words, associated with romance and dream, have created the self-image in which women like Adèle bask” (60).. Thornton explains further: “The. essential self of both kinds of women is obscured, first by the institution of marriage, which separates the inner and outer selves, and second by the myths of womanhood that equate effacement of self” (60).. Besides, Adèle is a. pleasant woman who is good at pleasing people. With Edna’s father, Adèle does her best to coquet “with him in the most captivating and naïve manner, with eyes, gestures, and a profusion of compliments, till the Colonel’s old head felt thirty years younger on his padded shoulders” (65). She also praises Edna: “Your talent is immense, dear!” (53). Knowing Adèle’s opinion is “next to valueless,” Edna “could not control a feeling which bordered upon complacency at her friend’s praise, even realizing, as she did, its true worth” (53). James Huneker, a music journalist, calls Adèle a “piano girl” who “devote[s] time to the keyboard merely for the purpose of social display” (qtd. in Dyer 87).. The editor Carol Neuls-Bates explains that the keyboard. instruments have been sex-typed as “feminine” since the Renaissance because they are “not only played at home but also required ‘no alteration in facial expression or physical demeanor’” (qtd. in Dyer 87). When Reisz, a true artist, plays the piano, “her body settled into ungraceful curves and angles that gave it an appearance of deformity” (61). Unlike Adèle, Reisz plays the piano not out of social display. Adèle plays the piano simply to entertain people. She plays the piano “very well, keeping excellent waltz time and infusing an expression into the strains which was indeed inspiring” (24). In short, she keeps up her music because it is “a means of brightening the home and making.

(40) Hsieh. 37. it attractive” (24). Adèle’s body is represented as the maternal capacity highly valued in the patriarchal society. Peggy Skaggs says that “[Adèle’s] body appears to have been designed to lure men, to incubate babies, and to nurture offspring” (90). She looks “more beautiful than ever there at home, in a negligé which left her arms almost wholly bare and exposed the rich, melting curves of her white throat” (53). In the patriarchal society, the female’s place is in the house. That is the reason why Adèle looks more beautiful at home as she is the embodiment of domesticity. The narrator says that “[n]ever were hands more exquisite than hers, and it was a joy to look at them when she threaded her needle or adjusted her gold thimble to her taper middle finger as she sewed away on the little night-drawers or fashioned a bodice or a bib” (9). Here Adèle represents the housewife who depends on her husband and children for definition. That is to say, she has given her body to her role as mother-woman by her biennial pregnancies. Adèle has been married for seven years, and “about every two years she had a baby. At that time she had three babies, and was beginning to think of a fourth one” (10). She is always talking about her “condition” though it is not apparent.. But she insists on “making it the. subject of conversation” (10). Adèle’s preoccupation with her “condition” reveals that her entire sense depends upon her maternal capacity. Skaggs concludes that “[a]ccordingly the ‘mother-woman,’ Madame Ratignolle, perhaps comes closer to achieving a satisfactory existence than any other woman in the novel, and she does so by building it entirely upon her maternal role, allowing her family to ‘possess her, body and soul’” (90). Martha Fodaski Black says that Adèle enjoys “the role of a weak, helpless dependent who faints easily and must be pampered because of her delicate.