The Awakening

We meet Edna Pontellier, wife and mother of two, while she is vacationing with her family on Grand Isle in Louisiana in the late 1800s. Through the love she develops for the young man, Robert Lebrun, and through the friendships she forges with other women, Madame Reisz and Madam Ratignolle, she realizes that she is deeply unhappy. This unhappiness stems from the lack of fulfillment she feels in her domestic life. In the novel, she learns to swim and she pursues painting. Both activities also serve as metaphors for her growth and her stifled development and creativity. Before the vacation ends, she is shocked to learn that Robert will be travelling to Mexico indefinitely on business.  When she returns from Grand Isle to her home in the city, the domestic oppression becomes even more intolerable. To the external eye, hers is a life of domestic bliss. Her husband is not cruel or abusive, but she becomes aware that her role as a wife and mother is to preserve domestic harmony and not to pursue her own growth. She awaits Robert’s return and decides to move out of her house while her husband is away on business and her children are staying with a relative. While she is in the process of moving, Robert returns. They are in her new home together, on the brink of beginning a romantic relationship, when she is called away because Madame Ratignolle is asking for her as she gives birth. Robert promises to wait for her. When Edna returns, she finds a note from Robert that reads, “I love you. Good bye- because I love you.” (134). Despondent, Edna returns to Grand Isle. She swims out to a point of no return and the book closes with her consciousness fading out as she drowns.