Kate Chopin

Kate Chopin's biography was rather sparse. About the only thing I gleaned from it was that she was rather pampered for most of her life. This fact seemed to be what led her to write as she did. Her characters dealt with issues of inner turmoil rather than external circumstances. All their base needs (food, shelter, water) have been met so they can afford to dwell on the wants and desires rather than the necessities of life. Their lives are of the mind rather than the body.

Chopin's story "The Awakening" was a very interesting reading. Ms. Chopin paints a portrait of a well-to-do woman who strips herself of all conventions of society. Edna Pontellier "wakes up" one day and finally feels alive in the truest sense of the word. Her senses are heightened and she is overflowing with emotion. What brings her to this point? What finally wakes her up after all these years? Love. And not the love for her husband and children, but the love for a man named Robert Lebrun whom she encounters while on vacation on the island of Grand Isle in the Gulf of Mexico. This man brings to life something in her that had until their meeting had lain dormant inside her. After Mrs. Pontellier experiences this "awakening", she becomes caught up in a whirlwind of self-satisfaction without regard to how she is affecting those around her. She literally as well as metaphorically distances herself from those who love and care for her. All with the hopes of one day being reunited with her beloved Robert.

When Robert does return from Mexico, where he had escaped to earlier in the story, he is cold and distant towards Edna. He says he doesn't want to be responsible for ruining her life or the lives of those connected to her. Finally, he leaves for good, leaving only a note stating that he has left because he does love her. This sends Edna into a state of despondency that ultimately leads to her demise. She has lost her sense of wakefulness and is thrust back into her former "deadened" self. In the throes of her depression, seeing no other way out, she revisits the resort where the story began. She goes down to the water, strips herself naked, and swims until she can swim no more, thus ending her life and the story. What had initially "awakened" her became her ultimate departure from life.