Passion In Chopin's The Awakening

Man often pairs logical rationale with the underlying emotional basis for his decisions, but emotion ceases to exist when it no longer parallels the rationale. At the beginning, Monsieur Aubigny’s passion for Désirée awakens with the ferocity of all “that drives headlong over all obstacles.” Chopin compares its tenacity to an avalanche and a prairie fire, giving the impression of strength and omnipotence, and Monsieur Aubigny uses this passion to justify his quick courtship and marriage to Désirée. However, just as the fire and the avalanche, his passion weakens with every obstacle. Upon his realization that Désirée gave birth to an African-American child, his passion immediately freezes. He loses his humanity, indifferent to Désirée’s pleas
for love because his affection for her beauty is weaker than his rationale for abandoning her. He feels reasonable for metaphorically stabbing into her chest “because of the unconscious injury she had brought upon his home and his name.” This metaphor reveals his innate hypocrisy because he rationalizes inflicting conscious pain with the “unintentional injury” he believes Désirée caused. Furthermore, the superficial justification clarifies the shallowness of his passion for the Désirée, insinuating that Monsieur Aubigny’s emotion exists so long as the justification for its death is weaker. Chopin reiterates his superficial emotion through the irony of Monsieur Aubigny African-American heritage. His unintentional hypocrisy stresses the danger of assumptions to the reader, and forces him to acknowledge the entirety of Monsieur Aubigny’s justifications once more. His reasons for physically and emotionally abandoning his wife becomes even more meaningless because they hold no truth. Finally, Chopin ends the story with “a great bonfire,” fueled with the remnants of Désirée’s possessions after she disappears. Monsieur Aubigny’s passion dies in the same fiery manner as it awoke — entirely superficial. He feels no remorse for throwing her possessions into the fire, stoically handing them to his slaves and watching the great spectacle. This image implores his lack of emotion for Désirée, hinting not only at a lack of passion, but a lack of any underlying emotion at all. Thus, though the fire burns from Désirée’s material belongings, it only exists due to Monsieur Aubigny’s antipathy to her fate.