The Awakening

This 1899 novel scandalized readers with its frank portrait of a woman who wants more than wifehood and motherhood, and it still reads as startlingly modern. It is essential for anyone interested in early feminism, Southern literature, or the birth of American modernism—and for any reader who has felt the walls of an expected life closing in. Its mixed reception, from 'poison' to canonical classic, is itself part of the story.

1. 1

   Act 1

   The Summer That Wakes Her

   Grand Isle, a summer resort on the Gulf of Mexico. A green and yellow parrot shrieks 'Allez vous-en! Allez vous-en! Sapristi!' from its cage while a mockingbird whistles back, and Léonce Pontellier, a New Orleans businessman, sits on the porch reading a day-old newspaper (verified). His wife Edna comes up from the beach with Robert Lebrun, Madame Lebrun's son. When Edna has been swimming, Léonce inspects her 'as one looks at a valuable piece of personal property which has suffered some damage,' complaining she is 'burnt beyond recognition.' Robert attaches himself to Edna 'assiduously,' accompanying her on walks, swims, and outings, though he has a history of summer flirtations with women he cannot have. Adèle Ratignolle, sewing night-drawers for her expected child, warns him: 'She is not one of us; she is not like us. She might make the unfortunate blunder of taking you seriously.' Léonce, puzzled that Edna is not a 'mother-woman' like Adèle, scolds her one night for neglecting Raoul's fever, saying she is negligent and asking whose place it is to look after children if not a mother's. Edna cries without knowing why. On a walk to the beach, Adèle draws out Edna's memories: a Kentucky meadow, a cavalry officer, an engaged man. At a Grand Isle soirée musicale, Mademoiselle Reisz plays a Chopin Impromptu, and Edna does not hear the notes but feels the music as passions stirring within her soul, 'swaying it, lashing it, as the waves daily beat upon her splendid body.' Then, one evening, she swims alone for the first time, out where no woman had swum before, and feels a feeling of exultation, as if some power of significant import had been given her to control the working of her body and her soul. She grows suddenly afraid and swims back. When Léonce calls her, she refuses to come inside, staying on the porch alone all night until dawn. She and Robert boat to Chênière Caminada, where they attend mass and have lunch; during mass Edna feels 'oppressed and drowsy,' and she and Robert slip away to Madame Antoine's cottage, where Edna sleeps in the white bed and wakes to find Robert watching her. Then Robert announces abruptly that he is leaving for Mexico that evening on business. At dinner, Edna's face shows 'no sign of inward disturbance' but she later leaves the table early. That night she sits on the porch, and when Robert says goodbye, she can only murmur 'Good-by' without looking at him.

2. 2

   Act 2

   The House on Esplanade Street

   Back in New Orleans, on Esplanade Street, Edna begins to neglect her social and household duties, skipping her Tuesday reception day, to Léonce's dismay. After receiving callers one Tuesday afternoon, she flings her wedding ring upon the floor and stamps her heel upon it, trying to crush it. She cannot break it, and a maid retrieves it, placing it on the mantel. Edna tells Adèle that she would give up the unessential; she would give her money, she would give her life for her children; but she wouldn't give herself. She begins sketching and painting again, finding joy in art, and visits Mademoiselle Reisz in her cramped apartment above a drugstore, where Reisz plays the Chopin Impromptu again and Edna weeps as at Grand Isle. Reisz shows her a letter from Robert in Mexico that mentions Edna, asking if she is still married to Léonce. Reisz lets Edna read it but refuses to let her keep it, saying, 'I have received no letter from Robert that I would not show you, but this is another matter.' Léonce, alarmed by his wife's oddness, consults old Doctor Mandelet, who suspects another man but says nothing. He advises, 'Let your wife alone for a while. Don't bother her, and don't let her bother you. Woman, my dear friend, is a very peculiar and delicate organism.' When Léonce prepares to travel to New York on business and sends the boys to stay with their grandmother in the country, Edna is alone in the house for an extended period, which gives her freedom to reflect. Alcée Arobin, a dandy with a reputation for seducing married women, kisses her hand at the racetrack. She does not resist. Later he drives her home, and when he puts his arm around her, she feels 'a flaming torch' kindle desire—the first purely physical passion she has known. She moves out of the Pontellier mansion into a small four-room bungalow around the corner on Pontellier property, which she calls the 'pigeon house.' She tells Arobin, 'I know I shall like it, like the feeling of freedom and independence.' She furnishes it sparsely, with only a few pieces, and feels a sense of having 'descended in the social scale' but risen in the spiritual. There Arobin kisses her and she responds with passion. After he leaves, she feels 'a dull pang of regret' but no shame. The narrator notes, 'It was the first kiss of her life to which her nature had really responded.' She hosts one last glittering birthday dinner at her Esplanade Street home—her last before moving—to celebrate her birthday. It glitters with candles, flowers, and champagne. The guests include Arobin, Reisz, Ratignolle, and others. Edna wears a satin gown and a diamond circlet in her hair. She presides like a queen, but 'there was something in her attitude, in her whole appearance, which suggested the regal woman, the one who rules, who looks on, who stands alone.'

3. 3

   Act 3

   Robert Comes Back

   Robert returns to New Orleans and encounters Edna at Mademoiselle Reisz's apartment. He is distant and formal, making excuses not to be alone with her. Edna accuses him of 'not seeming glad to see me,' and he replies, 'I am glad to see you, but I had thought—I had expected—' and does not finish. At last, in her pigeon house, the truth comes out. Robert confesses his love and says, 'I love you. Good-by—because I love you.' He explains he dreamed of Léonce setting her free, but Edna replies, 'I am no longer one of Mr. Pontellier's possessions to dispose of or not. I give myself where I choose.' For a moment it seems she might have everything—love on her own terms, a house of her own, a self she made. Then Adèle Ratignolle's difficult childbirth summons Edna to her friend's bedside. Adèle, in agony, whispers to Edna, 'Think of the children, Edna. Oh think of the children! Remember them!' The scene is raw and visceral; Edna feels 'a wrench and a pang' at the sight of the 'scene of torture.' The woman who embodies everything Edna is fleeing asks her, at the edge of death, to remember what motherhood costs and demands. Edna leaves that bedside carrying the weight of it. When she gets home, Robert is gone. He has left a note: 'I love you. Good-by—because I love you.' He has left forever because he loves her too much to shame her by a relationship with a married woman. She sits on the sofa all night, sleepless, and in the morning Arobin finds her there. She sends him away, saying she wants to be alone.

4. 4

   Act 4

   The Gulf

   Doctor Mandelet walks Edna home from the Ratignolle house. He offers gentle counsel: 'The trouble is that youth is given up to illusions. It seems to be a provision of Nature; a decoy to secure mothers for the race. And Nature takes no account of moral consequences.' Edna does not reply. She travels alone to Grand Isle. The beach is deserted; the summer colony is gone. She finds her old bathing suit hanging in its accustomed peg in the bathhouse, puts it on, and walks naked into the sea. 'The water was chill, but she walked on. The water was deep, but she lifted her white body and reached out with a long, sweeping stroke.' She swims out into the Gulf of Mexico until exhaustion overcomes her and she drowns. As she swims out, memories flash: her Kentucky childhood meadow, her sister's wedding, the cavalry officer, the smell of pinks. She hears her father's voice and the barking of an old dog. 'She thought of Léonce and the children. They were a part of her life. But they need not have thought that they could possess her, body and soul.' Exhausted, she does not turn back. The Gulf, whose voice the narrator describes as 'seductive; never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander for a spell in abysses of solitude,' takes her. Mademoiselle Reisz's warning hangs over the ending: '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.'

• EEdna PontellierA Kentucky-born wife in New Orleans Creole society who awakens to desire, art, and selfhood—and finds no world built to hold her. She claims a house, a lover, and her own will, then walks into the Gulf rather than surrender either self or children.
• LLéonce PontellierEdna's businessman husband, who values her as a fine possession and cannot read her unhappiness. He consults a doctor about her, then leaves her alone—never grasping what she wants.
• RRobert LebrunMadame Lebrun's charming younger son, who summers by flirting with unattainable women and breaks his own pattern by falling in love with Edna. He flees to Mexico, returns, confesses, and leaves forever rather than shame her.
• AAdèle RatignolleEdna's devoted friend, the perfect 'mother-woman' who idolizes her children and worships her husband. Her agonizing childbirth and plea to think of the children shake Edna at the moment of her own liberation.
• MMademoiselle ReiszA blunt, disagreeable pianist living alone above a drugstore, who moves Edna with her Chopin and keeps Robert's letters. She shows Edna what an independent woman looks like—and warns that soaring requires strong wings.
• AAlcée ArobinA dandy with a reputation for seducing married women, who awakens Edna's physical passion while her husband is away. He is desire without love, and she sends him away when it no longer matters.
• DDoctor MandeletThe old family physician who suspects another man but says nothing, advising Léonce to let Edna be. His counsel about Nature's illusions goes unanswered.

The parrot and the mockingbird

The caged parrot shrieking 'Allez vous-en!'—go away—opens the novel beside a mockingbird that whistles in answer. The caged bird speaks a language no one heeds; the mockingbird mimics. Both stand for women whose voices are decorative or ignored, and Edna's story is the story of what happens when the cage is opened.

The sea

The Gulf's voice is 'seductive; never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander for a spell in abysses of solitude.' It is where Edna first swims alone and feels power over body and soul, and where she finally drowns. The sea that awakens her is the same water that ends her—the one space vast enough to hold a self nothing else could contain.

The wedding ring

After receiving callers one Tuesday, Edna flings her wedding ring to the floor and stamps her heel on it, trying to crush it. It will not break; a maid retrieves it and sets it on the mantel. The ring stands for a marriage that cannot be smashed by will alone—and that quietly returns to its shelf, waiting.

The pigeon house

Edna's four-room bungalow around the corner, which she calls the 'pigeon house,' is her first property of her own—sparse, small, and 'a feeling of freedom and independence.' The name cuts both ways: a pigeon house is a step down the social scale and still a kind of cage, small and near the mansion it replaced. Her freedom fits inside four rooms.

The bird with strong wings

Mademoiselle Reisz tells Edna: '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.' The image frames Edna's fate—she soars and falls, and the sea receives the descent.

Edna's drowning is the book's most argued-over moment, and it resists a single reading. One view: it is self-possession. Her last thought insists that Léonce and the children 'need not have thought that they could possess her, body and soul'—she gives back the body no one else may claim, the final act of agency available to her. Another view: it is defeat, proof that the society of her time had no place for a woman who refused both Adèle's self-effacement and Reisz's isolation, so escape meant leaving society altogether. A third reading hears the Romantic note: the sea's seductive voice and the music that lashed her soul have been inviting her toward this abyss all along. The ending lands because it refuses consolation—awakening is real, and so is its cost.

1. 1.Is Edna's suicide an act of self-possession or a surrender? Weigh her final thought—'they need not have thought that they could possess her, body and soul'—against the society that left her no other exit.

Read it if you've ever felt the life you built fit like a coat that stopped being yours. It's for anyone who wants the 1899 novel that scandalized America with a woman who wanted more than she was allowed to name.

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