The Victorian Era: a Prison for a Woman’s Individuality

The Victorian Era: A Prison for a Woman’s Individuality

As Victorian writer, George Meredith once dictated: “Each one of an affectionate couple may be willing, as we say, to die for the other, yet unwilling to utter the agreeable word at the right moment.” In the novella The Awakening by Kate Chopin, the main character Edna Montpellier is a Victorian woman awakened from a stagnant life of a typical turn-of-the-century marriage. She looks for a life outside of her family that she desires to branch away from to find her artistic spirit. In her quest for finding her true self, she has a sensuous affair with a young man by the nae of Robert Lebrun. Chopin uses the suicide of Edna as a rebellious acceptance of her inability to become independent and liberated woman that she wants to be.

Chopin shows Edna’s ambitions of independence from her marriage through her rash and impulsive decisions. Edna’s excessive need to become independent and to get away from her family sparks her motivation to move to the “pigeon house” (Chopin, 141). She decides to move there after a rush of happiness and excitement over loving Robert. The house is “right around the block” and she only takes the “everything which she had acquired aside from her husband’s bounty” (141). She transplants herself “to the other house, supplying simple and meager deficiencies of her own resources” (141). Her sudden need to move to get away from everything that binds her to her married life is an expression of her free self. She leaves behind everything that she did not acquire and earn herself in order to be free of the grasp of her husband. Edna receives many gifts from Léonce throughout the novel, including a diamond necklace and gift baskets. The other women marvel at these gives, and Mrs. Pontellier is forced to admit that she has the “best husband in the world,” and that she knows “of none better” (15). Considering that Léonce is a neglectful man, who is more-often-than-not away from home, not knowing any better husbands displays the lack of appreciation of women in the early twentieth century. Other women are amazed at how much Léonce gives Edna and they believe that a woman is only in a good marriage if the man can supply his wife with a bounty of objects, even if he is in actuality a horrible husband. He buys her everything she wants as a way to control and own her. Edna wants to escape this materialistic imprisonment by having her own home where everything belongs to her, and solely to her. Edna’s move to the pigeon house is a act of pseudo-rebellion, as she still has a dependency on her husband.
Chopin manipulates Edna’s affair with Robert Lebrun to ultimately change the essence of her individuality. They spent their vacations together at Grand Idles, she with her family, and Robert is there because his mother owns the collection of cottages. They would spend entire days together, simply looking at each other and smiling. They would sit, and “[n]o multitude of words would have been more significant than those moments of silence, or more pregnant with the first felt throbbing of desire” (51). Their days together consist of quiet understanding and appreciation of each other. The more time they spend together, the greater the desire grows. The “pregnant” first feeling of desire is depicting the fact that their lust for each other will slowly grow inside of them both, until the urges will not be able to be suppressed. This “birth” of desire is a dangerous situation to be in, especially with a capricious married woman. She is absolutely infatuated by him and they both are aware of it. Robert speaks of “intending to go to Mexico” in the autumn (10). As their conversations wear on, Edna finds that “he… always intends to go to Mexico” (10). He finally leaves for Mexico and it comes as a shock to Mrs. Pontellier who is, at this point, absolutely infatuated by him. She is left devastated and alone. His actions leave her feeling more vulnerable than she has ever felt before. Her immediate response to his leaving is to isolate herself more, and to try to develop some kind of artistic and unique sense of self, much like Mademoiselle Reisz. She becomes depressed with Robert’s absence. When he is gone, she admits to a badgering Mademoiselle Reisz that, yes, she loves him. As she finds out that he loves her, too, the “mere thought of his return” makes her feel happy and glad (135). Her devotion to him and no one else makes her find a sense of herself, causing her to want the independent lifestyle away from the possessiveness of her family. Her love for him ignites a passionate and compulsive need for change in her life. Edna’s desire to escape her family life paired with her love for Robert evokes a need for an altered life, where she is the center.
Edna’s conquests of love and independence quickly shatter and flee from her because of the restraints of her marriage. After Edna announces that she is moving into the pigeon house, Arobin asks her “about the dinner” and calls it “the grand event,” and “the coup d’état” (143). She askes him why he calls it the “coup d’état” and then begins to explain the lavish details: “all [Edna’s] best everything – crystal, silver and gold, Sévres, flowers, music, and champagne to swim in” (142). She also states that she will “let Léonce pay the bills,” and Arobin, once again, calls the action of moving into the pigeon house and having Léonce finance everything a “coup d’état” (143). The prodigal description of the dinner is in opposition to the minimalistic lifestyle that is implied by living in the pigeon house. Edna moves to the small house in order to escape the binds of money based marriage. Instead, she is having an extravagant dinner, being paid for by the husband she is trying to gain independence from. Arobin labels this hypocritical allowance of Léonce paying for the expenses of the dinner a “coup d’état” because Edna is essentially “overthrowing” her husband as ruler. She is taking his power by undermining his authority as the “head of the household” by moving to the pigeon house without his permission and allowing him to pay for all of her expenses. Her move to the pigeon house is an act of defiance and independence, which she immediately betrays when she does not pay for her dinner herself. The location of the house is “two steps away,” making the big move just a small transfer of housing (143). Edna’s attempt at independence is an utter failure, for she still relies heavily on her husband. Her conquest of love for Robert is also thwarted by her marriage to Léonce and her children. Robert comes back from Mexico, and Edna and he confess their love for each other in her parlor. She leaves for a few moments to speak with Doctor Mandelet and when she returns Robert is nowhere to be seen. She suddenly remembers Adèle’s voice saying “think of the children” as she walked into an empty parlor. On a piece of paper, he writes, “I love you. Good-by – because I love you” (185). Edna then grows faint, and stretches out on the sofa, “never uttering a sound” (185). She does not sleep, nor does she go to bed. Robert leaves happiness for the sake of her family; he does not want to ruin a marriage, even if it is for love. She suddenly decides to go to Grand Isle. She does not dwell “upon any particular thought,” for she does “all of the thinking which was necessary after Robert went away” (188). On her sofa, she decides she does not want to go on living without Robert. She feels lost without him and all of the happiness from her life is gone, once again, because Robert leaves her. Her dependence on men and lack of a courageous spirit decides her fate. She decides that if she cannot live as a free woman, she must not live at all. Her loss of love, as well as her lack of independence, ultimately causes her to self-destruct.
The use of Edna’s suicide as a rebellious act in acceptance of the impossibility for her to become the independent and liberated woman that she aspires to be depicts the Victorian woman’s struggle. Her attempts at independence are executed by her need of support by men. Edna’s conquest for Robert’s love is successful in that he, indeed, loves her, too. This mutual infatuation, however, does not keep them together, for Edna’s family keeps them apart. Ultimately, married women in the Victorian era could not find independence or individuality, because they were bound by societal roles to care for their husbands and children.