CliffsNotes on Chopin's The Awakening

Cliff Notes

• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
• ISBN:
  9780544179783
• Edition: 0
• Topic: Study Aids
• Subtopic: Study Guides

Chapter I

Summary

The novel opens with Léonce Pontellier, a vacationer on Grand Isle (which is just off the coast of New Orleans), reading a newspaper and surveying his surroundings. He is annoyed by a caged parrot loudly repeating its stock phrases, and so leaves the main building of the pension (boardinghouse) for his own cottage. Léonce’s wife, Edna Pontellier, and her friend Robert Lebrun return from their swim in the Gulf of Mexico and join Léonce. He soon departs for billiards and socializing at the nearby Klein’s hotel.

 

Commentary

 

   Already Chopin establishes some key symbolism in the novel: Edna is the green-and-yellow parrot telling everyone to “go away, for God’s sake.” Unable to leave the cage, the parrot must ask everyone to leave when it would prefer to simply fly away.

The parrot knows not only French, Spanish, and English phrases but also “a language which nobody understood, unless it was the mockingbird that hung on the other side of the door.” The mockingbird represents Madame Reisz (a character who is introduced in Chapter IX), the only character who is successful at making Edna tell the truth about her love for Robert that develops throughout the novel. Later chapters show how Madame Reisz’s piano playing speaks to Edna’s soul as if that music were the language her soul had been waiting in silence for. Mockingbirds have a reputation as obnoxious birds, and Madame Reisz shares a similar reputation as a rude, ill-tempered woman. The description of the mockingbird also sets the tone for Madame Reisz’s independent behavior within the confines of the insistently polite upper-class Creole society; she too whistles her own tune “with maddening persistence.”

 

   The nature of Edna’s relationships with Léonce and Robert is established in this first brief chapter, as well. Léonce, noting his wife’s sunburn, expresses not concern for her potential discomfort but instead regards her “as one looks at a valuable piece of personal property that has suffered some damage.” Yet Léonce and Edna have built between them a working familiarity that allows them to communicate wordlessly, such as when he hands her rings to her at her simple wordless gesture of holding out her hand. Such nonverbal communication is a tremendous bond between a couple, and is often an indication of their unity.

At the same time, Edna clearly has a bond with her platonic friend Robert that excludes her husband—this bond is represented by the adventure that she and Robert share during their swim, the joy of which they cannot communicate to Léonce. While Léonce is familiar, Robert is fun and lively. At 26, he is only two years younger than Edna, while Léonce is 12 years older. Ironically Léonce is clearly not threatened by Robert’s friendship with his wife: When Robert declines Léonce’s invitation to accompany him to Klein’s hotel, stating “quite frankly that he preferred to ... talk to Mrs. Pontellier,” Léonce simply tells Edna to “send him about his business when he bores you.”

 

   Another motif set up in this chapter is the significance of music in Edna’s life and in the novel. Two twin girls, children of other vacationers at the pension, can be heard practicing a piano duet from an opera in which a character drowns at sea—foreshadowing musically Edna’s ultimate fate.

Issue of class and race are implicitly addressed, as well: Edna’s own children have a quadroon (meaning she is one-quarter African) nanny. She attends to Edna’s boys “with a faraway, meditative air.” However, while she may be entertaining the same thoughts of independence from society’s demands that Edna later has, she lacks the economic freedom to pursue life on her own terms, particularly in the intensely bigoted atmosphere of 1890s Louisiana. Like most of the servant characters, she is not named and her voice is never heard.

 

Glossary

 

(Here and in the following sections, difficult words and phrases are explained.)

 

“Allez vous-en! Sapristi!”      French phrases meaning “Go away! For God’s sake!”

Grand Isle      an island off the Louisiana coast, about fifty miles south of New Orleans.

Zampa      an opera written by Ferdinand Herold in which a character drowns at sea.

telling her beads      praying on her rosary.

pension      a term used in France and other continental countries for a boardinghouse.

Chênière Caminada      a small island lying between Grand Isle and the Louisiana coast.

lugger      a small vessel equipped with a lugsail or lugsails.

quadroon      a person who has one black grandparent; child of a mulatto and a white.

sunshade      a parasol used for protection against the sun’s rays.

lawn sleeves      sleeves made from lawn, a fine, sheer cloth of linen or cotton.

Chapter II

Summary

As Edna and Robert continue chatting on the porch of the Pontelliers’ cottage, they reveal more of their backgrounds and personalities. Robert has long had youthful intentions of going to Mexico to seek his fortune but has yet to follow through and so remains at his modest job in his native New Orleans. Edna speaks of her family and their homes in Mississippi and Kentucky. Then, while Edna gets ready for dinner, Robert plays with her two young boys.

 

Commentary

 

   Edna’s physical description seems to provide insight into her character: “Her face was captivating by reason of a certain frankness of expression and a contradictory subtle play of features.” Contradiction and frankness underlie her imminent rejection of the society that she comes to feel is imprisoning her.

Chopin describes Edna with the potent phrase “She was an American woman”—an identity that differentiates her from the Creoles around her, who maintain multilingual ties to their French and Spanish heritage. In contrast, Edna’s French background was “lost in dilution.” The term “American woman” evokes all the qualities that stereotypically characterize Americans: independence, boldness, and a desire to conquer new territory. Yet those qualities were not welcome in American women of the 1890s, when women—particularly those of the leisure class to which Edna belongs—were rewarded for passivity, dependence, and staying at home.

 

   While, as a man, Robert is free to seek his fortune in Mexico, he has not yet followed through on this frequently stated intention. Instead, he has always “held on to his modest position in a mercantile house,” seemingly content to keep hold of a safe job within his native city and spend summers with his mother. His youth and inexperience are highlighted in this chapter; Chopin describes him as talking much about himself because “He was very young, and did not know any better.” At the same time, Edna “talked a little about herself for the same reason.” Their relationship seems based more on harmless mutual entertainment than on an emotional or intellectual connection. Rather than discussing any topic with depth or insight, they instead “chatted incessantly,” a phrase that brings to mind a couple of schoolgirls rather than a pair of potential lovers. The lack of depth in their relationship at this point may indicate a falsity at the root of their later passion.

 

Glossary

 

countenance      the look on a person’s face that shows one’s nature or feelings.

“The Poet and the Peasant”      an operetta by Franz von Suppé (1819–1895), Austrian conductor and composer of popular operettas.

Quartier Français      rench Quarter, also known as the Old Quarter; the oldest part of New Orleans and the area in which most New Orleans’ Creoles lived.

Chapter III

Summary

That night when Léonce returns from Klein’s hotel, cheerful and talkative, Edna is already asleep. His entrance wakes her and he tries to elicit responses to his gossip despite her sleepiness. Checking on the sleeping boys, he reports to Edna that Raoul has a fever and compels her to check on the boy, despite her objections that Raoul was quite healthy when he went to bed. By the time Léonce goes to sleep, Edna is fully awake. She goes onto the porch and cries until the mosquitoes force her back inside to bed.

The next morning, Léonce leaves for New Orleans for the workweek. He sends a box of sweet and savory treats to Edna, which she shares with everyone else at Grand Isle.

Commentary

Léonce’s behavior upon returning home illustrates his perception of his wife as more of an amusement than a partner. When he arrives home, possibly drunk (considering his exuberant and talkative mood), he awakens Edna from a sound sleep but expects her to chatter back at him. He is displeased that “his wife ... evinced so little interest in things which concerned him, and valued so little his conversation.” In later chapters, contrast this insensitivity and selfishness on Léonce’s part with the studied courtliness and chivalry displayed by Arobin and Robert.

Not only does Léonce awaken her to provide an audience for his anecdotes, he also chastises her for not immediately checking on the fever that he mistakenly perceives in Raoul. When, instead, she asserts that Raoul likely does not have a fever because he gave no sign of sickness up until he went to bed, Léonce accuses her of neglecting the children. His reproach, voiced “in a monotonous, insistent way,” is ostensibly sensible, given that they have divided up the family support duties, with Léonce working outside the home in a brokerage business while Edna assumes full responsibility for all domestic areas, including childcare. Yet this division of labor was not the option actively...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Table of Contents
• About the Author
• Acknowledgments
• Copyright
• How to Use This Book
• LIFE AND BACKGROUND OF THE AUTHOR
• Personal Background
• Literary Writing
• INTRODUCTION TO THE NOVEL
• Introduction
• A Brief Synopsis
• List of Characters
• Character Map
• CRITICAL COMMENTARIES
• Chapter I
• Chapter II
• Chapter III
• Chapter IV
• Chapter V
• Chapter VI
• Chapters VII and VIII
• Chapters IX, X, and XI
• Chapters XII, XIII, and XIV
• Chapter XV
• Chapter XVI
• Chapter XVII
• Chapter XVIII
• Chapter XIX
• Chapter XX
• Chapter XXI
• Chapter XXII
• Chapter XXIII
• Chapter XXIV
• Chapter XXV
• Chapter XXVI
• Chapters XXVII and XXVIII
• Chapter XXIX
• Chapters XXX and XXXI
• Chapter XXXII
• Chapters XXXIII, XXXIV, and XXXV
• Chapter XXXVI
• Chapter XXXVII
• Chapter XXXVIII
• Chapter XXXIX
• CHARACTER ANALYSES
• Edna Pontellier
• Léonce Pontellier
• Robert Lebrun
• Mademoiselle Reisz
• CRITICAL ESSAYS
• Art in Edna Pontellier’s Life
• Wing Imagery in The Awakening
• CLIFFSNOTES REVIEW
• Q&A
• Identify the Quote
• Essay Questions
• Practice Projects
• CLIFFSNOTES RESOURCE CENTER
• Books
• Internet