Dtek Industries

The historical context matters, of course, in the production of any work, but it is precisely the extent to which a work transcends its context that determines its literary value. That Chopin is the author’s name by marriage (--“married to the right man,” according to her diary)—that she had six children, started her writing career officially only after being widowed, in a world attempting to grow out from under Victorian strictures—these facts are interesting, and there are many more to boot—certainly more than enough to prick the sides of scholars right over the edge of all relevance. That may be their wont, these falling, flailing pedants, but it is not mine. I ask, rather, what is universal in a piece of literature, and how is it attained? For me, the context is only a springboard to the literary; it is not a cage, nor an excuse. Why do men and women still respond so strongly, so personally to this book, more than a century after it was written? That is what interests me. And in this particular case, I will go even further and ask whether we are fortunate to have had Chopin dispense her genius in such kind? For a work’s universal, endless appeal, we should not misunderstand, only ups the ante on the question of its appropriateness.

Consider Orwell for a moment. The Soviet Union collapsed, but what fool believes Orwell has thus become obsolete? Even if Orwell’s intentions were wholly aimed at Stalin and the Soviet Union, his literary genius would not permit such specificity as would wrap his work up in the fate of one man, or even one empire. No, Orwell, if only by accident, did not critique a government, or a type of government, more so than he helped reveal the very crux of governance, itself. The result? 1984 has and will, though perhaps Orwell cannot, stand by as empires rise and fall like so many sandcastles on the beach.

Chopin’s artistic faculty is no less developed or engaged in The Awakening. Her protagonist Edna is not meant to be contained by a specific culture, and cannot be anything other than negligibly explained by it. Edna is timeless, that is, and it is Chopin’s own triumph over historical context to frame her so. Take, for example, how Chopin characterizes Edna’s husband. Perhaps Leonce is symptomatic of a social structure Chopin would long rail against, but he is as good and proper a mate as one can hope to have, patient, trusting, even (and admittedly) “the best husband in the world.” That he is far from good enough, it seems to be implied, has more to do with Edna than it does with him. Now, Chopin might just as easily have depicted Leonce as unfaithful, given the “Creole institution of concubinage with quadroon and octoroon women” that apparently was common in the book’s specific setting (Walker). Chopin even gives a quadroon to Edna’s family, but there is nothing, aside from protracted absences, to raise any suspicion in Leonce’s fidelity. He is so free of suspicion, in fact, that even Robert’s constant attention to his wife arouses no suspicion for him in the two of them. There is estrangement in the marriage, certainly, but Edna is as responsible, if not more responsible for it; and besides, it is an estrangement by which every marriage of any historical period might be threatened.

Now, many critics will rush to hold Leonce to greater account, condemning him for “looking at his wife as…a valuable piece of personal property,” or, later, for merely saving “appearances” in regard to Edna’s “quitting” the family. But Chopin sees that blaming Leonce, or even the society that produces him, minimizes her heroine—minimizes that great surge of self Edna feels and represents. Edna is decidedly not a reactionary—a jealous, tit-for-tat person. She is accountable, through and through. To say it again, Edna’s complicity in the undoing of her marriage is undeniable, and possibly too light a charge. For she took “so little interest in things which concerned [Leonce],” valued “so little his conversation,” and has, incidentally, a “habitual neglect of [their] children,” even though he would have her be “the sole object of his existence.” Edna is deeply dissatisfied, perhaps even utterly insatiable, and her cause for being so is elemental to her. In fact, with reference to and inclusion of Edna’s father, Chopin leaves little doubt that the cause of her revolt is more closely related to her upbringing than to any condition of marriage or parenthood that she has come into since. Edna’s waywardness, that is to say, is habitual, almost instinctual, and it is made so purposefully. Chopin understands that it is Edna’s “nature” that allows her to become a strong representative of that emptiness—that kind of incessant longing for meaning—that existential question mark every person endures to some degree.

My point here is that Edna is hardly unique in her longing. Our deep personal connection to her is, if ironically, evidence of her universal quality—and of Chopin’s great ability to engage us so thoroughly. In fact, the book’s entire worth is in the question it poses—the universal question of how to evaluate Edna—how to evaluate the spirit of Edna inside each one of us. Should we sympathize with her completely—even take refuge in her, grateful to find company for our misery—to be “awakened” more fully to our own bottomlessness? Or should we regard her as merely childish, allowing a common, albeit powerful, longing to fuel her ever further into proud fastidiousness, while she consistently confuses escape for freedom? Is Edna victim or victor of her circumstances? As shown by entitling the course of her heroine’s gradual suicide “the awakening,” Chopin has no intention to answer this question for us.

Let us start there, in fact, and consider Chopin’s carefully crafted ambiguity, her principal means of transcendence in the story, while we also continue to consider its ethical quality.

just a guy is Joey D

Ambiguity is a void of interpretation. In the hands of a great stylist like Chopin or Conrad, we may assume, as I have already stated, that it is placed deliberately where the reader most desires to have something more than nothing. Why? Because we will not accept nothing. We will try to fill the void. And that is its power—our power. We project what we will into it, our prejudices in Conrad’s case, our most personal hopes and desires, if not our disconsolate assertiveness, in Chopin’s. Thus Edna does not only become subject of our own self-projection, she becomes also the exemplar.

Note the connection between music, Robert and the sea, together with her own artistic musings and her brand of selfhood or freedom—they are all full of mystery—of “emotive words and other forms of trickery,” to recall Achebe again. But Chopin’s greatest achievement is in constructing a character every bit as alluring in her ambiguity as each of these mysteries are to her. The sea, especially, seems to be one with Edna. We come to look at her “to gather an impression of space and solitude, which the vast expanse… [conveys] to [our] excited fancy.” That is, we are hooked by Edna as she is hooked by each lure of independence (—which it is her admitted poverty to be unable to find through commitment, even to her own children). What does this mean? We are hooked by ourselves—by our own will to be as boundless and deep as the sea—to gleam “with the million lights of the sun”—to be “seductive, never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting…”

Some may argue that this undervalues the contrast between the men in Edna’s life. As one of my students pointed out, each man enjoys a different aspect of Edna’s character, but no one man, not even Robert, can enjoy all aspects of her at once. Leonce is the logic of convenience for Edna. Alcee manages to pull the “animal” out of her—he is the one with whom she finally physically cheats. But both are, at least for a time, clearly second to Robert, who engages Edna spiritually, or so it seems. The differences between each man, the argument runs, puts to question Edna’s faculty for projection. That is, if Edna is merely projecting herself into all things, then would she not at last be able to find in Alcee or Leonce what “completely” captivates her about Robert?

First of all, we do not merely project our desires into anything. There is nothing “mere” about it. It is a powerful operation, however unwitting we are in it, and—well, to quote Dead Poets Society:

“We did not just read poetry; we let it drip from our tongues like honey: spirits soared, women swoon, and gods were created.”

It is not my purpose here to minimize the feelings she has for Robert, or any of the feelings we have for her. This self-projection is, in my eyes, no less authentically spiritual than Edna’s most ardent apologizers would have it be—no less miraculous than any artistic creativity is, including that which Mademoiselle Reisz encourages Edna to pursue. And, indeed, to some extent, each enthralling object, just as is Edna herself, must be able to at least pose itself as a proper recipient of all our fancy. Consider Reisz again: no other pianist can move Edna the way she does. Reisz is good, really good. In fact, Edna is no less in faculty than Ratignolle or Reisz, both of whom create meaning for themselves in their wonted ways. Edna only wants their greater focus, their perseverance. And that is my point: in her love for Robert, we see Edna’s lack of discipline—her tendency, her “natural” habit to always and ever find all possibility of joy only in the elusive—only on the edge of fleeting experience. She is almost devoutly despondent.

What Alcee ultimately lacks for Edna is the same thing Leonce lacks: mystery. She cannot project herself into either man the way Robert’s absence allows her to project into him—the way she projected into and loved, earlier in her life, the “calvary officer,” the “engaged young man,” and, especially, “the tragedian.” She even once “fancied there was a sympathy of thought and taste between” her and Leonce, though, unsurprisingly, she came to find out otherwise quickly. Even when Robert and Edna are together at the beginning, he is an alluring mystery, a forbidden fruit for which she reaches unsuspectingly. The references to serpents, and, especially, to gardens, throughout, should not be missed.
“…she went softly out of doors, and plucking an orange from the low-hanging bough of a tree, threw it at Robert, who did not know she was awake and up.
“An illumination broke over his whole face when he saw her and joined her under the orange tree.”

Any sinister quality such allusions lend the relationship is quickly countered by a sense of affirmation, just as any sense of gaining knowledge becomes ultimately dubious. In any case, Edna is apparently the same thing to Robert that he is to her, and that coincidence seems to authenticate their feelings. Timing is everything, as they say, and the two characters, both of whom were unsure how “seriously” to take themselves a moment before, are, in the very next moment, matched in mutual passion. A new world begins.

And thus, they find themselves thrust forward to the crest of some great surge of selfhood. Edna “was beginning 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.”
And Robert is immediately conceived to be the cause of her “awakening”—another chance, after all, to claim the “acme of bliss” she thought she lost utterly in marriage and parenthood. And thus, the way to spiritual freedom is, for Edna, always away—away from those things to which she finds herself bound “purely [by] accident.” And thus, Leonce eventually becomes for her, despite all of his own best efforts, “a person whom she had married without love as an excuse.” And thus, in the end, the children are “antagonists who had overcome her; who had overpowered and sought to drag her into the soul’s slavery for the rest of her days.” And thus, and thus, and thus: one thing just led to another…

However deep you look into her “relationship” with Robert, you will find this same wistfulness—this all-too-common form of narcissism—this faith in the way out of whatever circumstances do not completely fit. When Reisz asks Edna why she loves Robert, she answers with a litany of quaint physical traits, suggesting both intimacy and thoroughness of judgment. But Reisz interrupts her, and quickly sums up her thinking: “[You love him] because you do.” Even for the artist-pianist Reisz, the posed opposite of the “mother-woman” Adele, such an answer is insufficient. But for Edna, as for many of us, feeling is its own reason, and reason enough, whatever its true source. “Do you suppose a woman knows why she loves?” Edna maintains her mysterious right—her right to mystery, and even calls it “feminine.”

Consider what is happening when Edna, who at the height of her individuality, when she appeared “the regal woman, the one who rules, who looks on, who stands alone,” among all her dinner guests—right then, consider why she suddenly feels “the old ennui overtaking her.” At the end of that same paragraph, “There came over her the acute longing which always summoned into her spiritual vision the presence of the beloved one, overpowering her at once with a sense of the unattainable.” What is Robert to her here? He’s not Robert. He is “the unattainable.” And what is she? She is outwardly everything she would have desired to be—the very picture of a person that would inspire anyone’s emulation, somehow equal in grace and assertiveness. But inside, she is empty. The void into which she habitually dives has filled her to the gills. And yet, are we to admire her for her assertiveness? Her “ennui,” we might feel, at least is real, unrepressed—the ennui of the brave. “Perhaps it is better to wake up after all, even to suffer, rather than to remain a dupe to illusion’s all one’s life,” Edna wonders. But should we buy this? Should we buy the way Edna has come to understand her world and herself? Should her path appear “true” for all its suffering, while Ratignolle’s and Reisz’s, disparate as they are, appear delusional?

The narrator is particularly sympathetic to Edna in parts, now and again adding credence to her judgments with seeming objectivity, and, as shown above, allowing her to increase in outward luster and allure the more self-assertive she becomes. We might surmise that Chopin, herself, is not far from these words:

“Above all, there was understanding. She felt as if a mist had been lifted from her eyes, enabling her to look upon and comprehend the significance of life, that monster made up of beauty and brutality.”

Or is she here?

“There was with [Edna] a feeling of having descended in the social scale, with a corresponding sense of having risen in the spiritual. Every step which she took toward relieving herself from obligations added to her strength and expansion as an individual. She began 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.”

There are many such examples, all of which, if plucked from the book with no regard to the specific conditions which inspired each one, might make for a great ode to independence or self actualization.

But Chopin, as I have been showing, is careful to counterbalance these effulgent outbursts of character and narrator with subtle and sometimes not so subtle irony, as with some sudden and drastic mood swing. Throughout the book, Edna, “who resolved never again to belong to another than herself,” strives to preserve these moments of self affirmation—this “intoxication of expectancy”—this sense of spiritual freedom, and throughout the book, she fails to do so. We might even wonder whether we are hearing self actualization in each example, or merely the thrill of escape, not unlike that which possesses a fugitive in flight. We hear Adele’s doctor, in the second to last chapter of the book, explain “that youth is given up to illusions,” and we are not sure he is not talking about Edna—he calls her a breath later, “[his] dear child.” Does Edna awaken—ever? Or does she merely continue to chase illusions, chasing her own tail, in essence? Chopin refuses to answer this question—she wants to leave it hanging in the air, which she effectively does with her ending, however this may inspire her reader.

just a guy is Joey D

Having, myself, been a victim of infidelity—of that kind of disrespect and dishonesty—and having also learned of other would-be heroes, who folded like children’s enterprises in waves of excuse, I was inclined to keep this book at arm’s length. But I also know there is no point to a biased critique. Throughout my reading, as well as my analysis of it, that has been the tension of my endeavor: careful, but fair. What astonished me about it, though, apart from fully empathizing with the book’s protagonist, is that Chopin does everything in her power to encourage precisely this type of treatment. For, as I have shown, Edna is deliberately morally ambiguous, and so is the story she fills. The great void Chopin creates is the question of how to judge her tragic hero.

But, first, let us quickly dispose of any doubt in the right to empathy. The contention that a man is unable to understand Edna’s struggle is, as any serious lover of literature knows, risible. What does Shakespeare or Ovid, Goethe, or Proust, or even Conrad not know of feeling lost, feeling trapped—of emptiness—of pining or confusion—of any single aspect of Edna’s conundrum? Yes, it is good to recall such ridiculous prejudice against women as we find in works like Schopenhauer’s diatribe “On Women,” in which the “great” German philosopher deigns to call “women…silly and short-sighted, in a word big children,” who are not “built for…great suffering, joy, exertion…,” bla bla bla. Indeed, what could Schopenhauer have done with Kate Chopin had he been able to live a century more and meet her? Very little, no question. And Schopenhauer’s thinking is still with us, of course, and to the extent it is, we must fight it. But Chopin’s achievement in this context—her achievement as a female artist should not be construed as having set for women a world apart. That does no one any favors. Chopin’s accomplishment should rather be seen as forever inviting women to the discourse—proving that a woman, too, is no less in natural capacity than a man—that clearly she can fully participate in everything it means to be human, and that it was and always will be an egregious error to assume she could not.

Fans of Chopin, however, giving too much to the autobiographical quality of the book, and perhaps even thinking they are rallying to the cause of Feminism, will often seek to absolve Chopin’s character her every indiscretion. Edna begs Adele’s doctor, “Don’t blame me for anything,” and the reader, by that point so deeply immersed in Edna’s struggle, for whatever reason, is eager to oblige, and to continue obliging long after the book is closed and on the shelf. That is not my impulse, however. Some critics will say that that is due to the baggage I bring to the book. They will call me closed-minded from the get-go and dismiss me as such, even after my best efforts here. But forcing a book to mean what it does not—using it as a springboard to redress the culture from which it would emancipate itself—is harmful and not helpful. As I have tried to show, my hesitancy in excusing Edna is informed by Chopin, herself. Edna warrants at least an arm’s length—and she does so decidedly. Ultimately, I have found I do not need to love Edna in order to love Chopin’s talent. And much more than that, I have found, and this is my main argument, that loving Edna unconditionally betrays Chopin’s own intention.

The greatest freedom I can grant Edna is culpability. Before stripping on the shore in the final scene, Edna watches “a bird with a broken wing…reeling, fluttering, circling disabled down, down to the water.” This recalls Reisz’s exhortation to the aspiring artist:
“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.”

So what broke Edna’s wing? Chance? The short-sightedness of Robert—of men—of society or even the Church? Fate? No, to give Edna what she most craves—to give her to herself, we must hand her over to her own fault. Nietzsche, Chopin’s contemporary across the sea, writes: “It is the weak characters without power over themselves who hate the constraint of style…[and] are always out to form or interpret themselves and their environment as free nature—wild, arbitrary, fantastic, disorderly, astonishing.” This does not only describe Edna, but also her defenders, among whom it is impossible to rank Chopin herself. Chopin does not “hate the constraint of style.”

Reisz, the character to whom I would believe Chopin is most closely related, is the proof of what freedom can be found even under the same oppression Edna suffers. Perhaps it is freedom without love or family, which would be a hard and unfair bargain. But Leonce’s total disinclination to treat Edna as Edna’s father would have treated her reveals the realm of possibility in her own marriage, too. Why does Edna fail to “emerge from [her] beginning”—why is she condemned to rebuke her upbringing forever, even when the conditions of that upbringing are gone? Why does her soul “perish in the tumult” that follows? It is Edna’s own inability to be greater than her conditions—to carve out for herself according to the particular demands of her life as Reisz—as even Ratignolle is able to do—that dooms her. She finds in her “nature” an excuse, not a challenge.

Think of Adele Ratignolle for a moment. Her invention of self is unfairly disregarded only because it “seems” conventional—because so many others have and will continue to redefine themselves in seemingly the same way; and perhaps, like Adele, they will do it because “[the] Bible tells you so.” (Church-goers are correct to feel Chopin’s buck in this insipid argument of Adele’s.) But we must remember that Edna’s perspective is not sacrosanct either. In Edna’s eyes, despite Edna’s earnest attempt to appreciate the “mother-woman,” Adele is ultimately submissive and out of touch with her true self. Adele, in other words, falls unduly short of the power “Ma” possesses in Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath:
“Her hazel eyes seemed to have experienced all possible tragedy and to have mounted pain and suffering like steps into a high calm and a superhuman understanding. She seemed to know, to accept, to welcome her position, the citadel of the family, the strong place that could not be taken.”

I am not saying this is the role a woman should “naturally” take. I am only saying Adele Ratignolle is undervalued—her own triumph of self is begrimed with “conformity”—with “bygone.” Whatever the case, it is Edna’s own refusal to commit to anything that traps her. And of this fact, she is, despite all of her inspiring affirmations, totally unaware.

In Edna, we have the female Narcissus, as I hinted before. But this statement needs clarification, because Narcissus is popularly misunderstood. Everyone thinks Narcissus is condemned for loving himself too much. But that is not the meaning of the tale, for we all love ourselves to some extent, and it is good that we do. No, Narcissus falls prey to his vanity in a subtly different way. He thinks his own image, to which he is “naturally” drawn, is something other than himself. That is, he lacks possession of his own drives—he lacks self-awareness—lacks all strength to question his own tendencies. His dive into himself is confused for a dive at something as good as all he hopes to be.

Edna is no different, “going and coming as it suited her fancy, and, so far as she was able, lending herself to any passing caprice?” Robert, early in the book, reminds “Edna of some gentleman on the stage.” But Robert is not the “tragedian.” Even the “tragedian” is not the “tragedian.” Edna is the “tragedian.” Her inability to look into the nature of her own longing becomes her tragic flaw. It is in this sense that Ratignolle’s admonishment makes sense:
“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.”
Edna refuses to evaluate herself. Somehow, she has not found time to do it, as she explains to Alcee, and there is no reason to think she ever will. Unlike Nietzsche, whose “strongest characteristic is self-overcoming,” who strove to “see all the strengths and weaknesses of [his] own nature and then [to] comprehend them in an artistic plan until everything [appeared] as art and reason,” Edna’s assertiveness amounts merely to escape. But more than Narcissus, Edna, in the ambiguous nature of her character, is also the water in which we may see our own reflection. And that is her true power. We must decide what to do with her. Will we dive in after her, or consider her more critically?
Chopin’s literary triumph is indubitable, and we are, indeed, fortunate to have it, just as it is. What it seems to lack in “artistic good taste” is due to some cowardice or lack of serenity on our own parts. Edna is ambiguous and wanting judgment—needing judgment, and some of the judgments she receives will be poorly conceived. But to put the question forth, to root out our own nature and change it, if we are so willing, is a benevolent and not a malignant service—a great service of universal scope. Chopin tests us as she herself, I suspect, was tested by Edna. Is she our pride or our conscience?

In sum, we can, with Edna, feel and project and escape and chase our tails all our lives, or worse we can just repress it, a monstrous fate, tepid and fearful. Such would be perfectly human—would be human, all-too-human, in fact. Edna thus becomes the sea in which we drown ourselves, however gradually. Or we can turn toward a greater resolution, a constructive mode in the face of our own answerlessness, reevaluating and reinventing ourselves—doing precisely what Edna fails to do. We must learn, that is, not just how to discipline ourselves in our longings, but why it is worthwhile to do so. For any circumstance, any relationship, every pulse of fate, however unanticipated, can be converted to our own advantage if we can learn to hold ourselves to a truer account for our own sense of insufficiency in the world. The Awakening can help us realize this.

And so, at long last, Kate Chopin, thank you.

just a guy is Joey D

If anyone was wondering what has happened to me on this thread, I have taken the project to paper and pencil. I will post my revised critique once I can. Until then, I can tell you that presently I am working toward these conclusions: Chopin is brilliant and cunning, Edna breeds pestilence, and every person in the world should read this book--to see whether he or she falls prey to it, or whether he or she can respond to it with maturity and dismiss it roundly.

Stay tuned...

just a guy is Joey D

The context matters, of course, in the production of the work, but it is precisely the extent to which a work, any work, transcends its context that determines its literary value, I believe. That Chopin was her name by marriage (--"married to the right man," according to her diary)--that she had six children, started her writing career after being widowed, in a world attempting to grow out from under Victorian strictures--these facts are interesting, and there are many more--certainly enough to prick the sides of scholars right over the edge of relevance. That may be their wont, these falling, flailing pedants, but it is not mine. I ask, rather, what is universal in Chopin's work, and how does she attain it? Why is it that men and women still respond so strongly, so personally to the book, a century after it was written?

Consider Orwell for a moment. The Soviet Union collapsed, but what fool thinks Orwell thus became irrelevant? Even if Orwell's intentions were wholly aimed at Stalin and the Soviet Union, his literary genius would not pemit such specificity as would wrap his work up in the fate of one man or one empire. No, Orwell, even if only by accident, did not critique a government, or a type of government, more so than he revealed the very crux of governance, the power struggle between the individual and his society's need for security. Whatever his desires, Orwell stood on guard against Clinton and Bush as much as against Stalin or Mao.

Chopin also attains such literary merit. For a clear example, she refuses to demonize the husbands of her heroines, at least in the two works I have read so far. Perhaps they are portions of a social structure she critiques harshly, but they are as good and proper as they can be in themselves, patient, trusting, tender--they're good husbands, though not good enough. Leonce, Edna's husband in "The Awakening," might have easily been depicted as unfaithful, given the "Creole institution of concubinage with quadroon and octoroon women" that apparently was common in the book's specific setting. But there is nothing, other than protracted absences, to raise any suspicion in Leonce's fidelity. There is estrangement, certainly, but Edna seems as responsible, if not more responsible for it. Perhaps I am failing to read between the lines a bit, but it is clear that Chopin is careful not to depict Edna as a jealous, tit-for-tat person. No, Edna is deeply disatisfied (perhaps even utterly insatiable), and thus she can become a clear representative of that emptiness, that kind of incessant longing for meaning, that existential question mark that all people bear to some degree.

I do not believe that Edna is unique in her longing. Our deeply personal connection to her is, if ironically, evidence of the universiality of her character and of her dilemma--and of Chopin's great ability to engage us so thoroughly. How does she do it? I'll take that up in the next post, but I will eventually return to the heroine, herself. For Edna's universiality begs the question of how to evaluate her as a person. Should we sympathize with her completely--even take refuge in her, grateful to find true company in our misery--to be awakened with her? Or should we regard the woman as merely childish, allowing a universal longing to fuel her ever further into indiscretions, confusing escape for freedom of spirit? Is Edna victim or victor of her nature? This question is left purposefully unanswered by Chopin, it seems to me, naming the story of a woman's gradual suicide "The Awakening."

Let's start there, in fact, and consider Chopin's carefully crafted ambiguity...

just a guy is Joey D