“...but whatever came, she had resolved never again to belong to another than herself.”
The Awakening was another classic I listened to for #classiclitbookclub in 2024. Looking back, I think it’s one that would grow on me with rereads. Edna Pontellier was a woman way ahead of her time. She isn’t happy with her life, or with her role as a wife and a mother. Despite the expectations of society, she basically throws in the towel, sticks her fingers up to the world, and says: nope, I’m not doing this anymore. I’m going to do what I want from now on.
Some people aren’t meant to be parents, and some just don’t want to be. But in her time, Edna was married and a mother because that’s what was expected. Drop her in the twenty-first century and I don’t think she would have made the same choices. The climax of the book is heartbreaking, but I think Edna felt like she didn’t have another option.
I really enjoyed the rebellious side of The Awakening, and writing this review makes me want to read it next time instead of listening.
About the Book
First published in 1899, this revolutionary novel so disturbed critics and the public that it was banished for decades afterward. Now widely read and admired, The Awakening has been hailed as an early vision of woman's emancipation. Rooted in the romantic tradition of Melville and Dickinson, it is the story of twenty-eight-year-old Edna Pontellier, a surprisingly modern woman trapped in a dehumanizing marriage and in search of self-discovery. Turning away from convention and society toward her primal instincts for passion and freedom, Edna abandons her family to realize herself as an individual. But her quest leads to her destruction by a society that grants no place for those unfulfilled by marriage and motherhood.
Kate Chopin (1850–1904) was an American author best known for her bold, ahead-of-its-time explorations of women’s inner lives. Writing in the late 19th century, she tackled themes like independence, desire, and identity in a society that often tried to silence women’s voices. Her novel The Awakening caused a stir when it was first published in 1899, but today it’s celebrated as an early feminist classic.
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