The Awakening

Question 1

Author Information

Answer 1

Kate Chopin, born Katherine O’Flaherty, was a U.S. author of short stories and novels. She is now considered by some to have been a forerunner of the feminist authors of the 20th century of Southern or Catholic background.

Question 2

Publication Information

Answer 2

1899

Question 3

Historical Context

Answer 3

When the book was first published it shocked readers with its honest treatment of female marital infidelity.

Question 4

Setting

Answer 4

Grand Isle and New Orleans during the late nineteenth century

Question 5

images, symbols, and motifs

Answer 5

Music
Children
Houses
Birds
The sea

Question 6

Themes

Answer 6

Solitude as the Consequence of Independence.

The Implications of Self-Expression.

Question 7

Edna Pontellier

Answer 7

Edna has her hands full looking for love and romance. She’s got a husband and two lovers. This seems excessive, and even more shocking considering that Edna used to be very sexually repressed, prim, and proper.

Question 8

Robert Lebrun

Answer 8

Robert is handsome, charming, and seems to have fallen in love with the beautiful Edna Pontellier

Question 9

Leonce Pontellier

Answer 9

By the standards of his day, Leonce Pontellier is the perfect husband. He gives Edna plenty of money, sends her care packages, and indulges her hobbies. Furthermore, he makes a good living and is a popular figure in society. However this is not what she wants.

Question 10

Adele Ratignolle

Answer 10

Adele is Edna’s close friend and almost complete opposite. As the supreme example of a “mother-woman,” Adele represents the ideal that Edna is supposed to imitate. Adele spends all her time caring for her family and maintaining a state of marital bliss with her husband. She keeps up with only one hobby, music, because it makes her home brighter and more attractive. In other words, Adele has completely subsumed her identity in favor of her family.

Question 11

Mademoiselle Reisz

Answer 11

A pianist of extraordinary skill, Mademoiselle Reisz is an odd duck in society due to her homely and unfashionable appearance, as well as her lack of a husband. She is most responsible for Edna’s artistic development. By sharing the letters she receives from Robert with Edna, she is also responsible for keeping Edna’s love for Robert alive.

Question 12

Alcee Arobin

Answer 12

Mothers, lock up your daughters. Alcee Arobin has a well-deserved playboy reputation, and he introduces Edna to various physical pleasures that Chopin leaves to our imagination.

Question 13

Doctor Mandelet

Answer 13

Doctor Mandelet is the Pontellier family physician who is surprisingly perceptive as to the real causes of Edna’s strange behavior.

Question 14

The Two Lovers

Answer 14

We see these lovebirds on Grand Isle, but they remain nameless and faceless. The two lovers are characterized only by their various sweet and romantic actions. They seem joined at the hip and, strangely, always appear in conjunction with the lady in black

Question 15

The Lady In Black

Answer 15

Another vacationer on Grand Isle, the lady in black follows the young lovers around with patient, resigned solitude. She’s depressing, and functions largely to remind us that young love doesn’t last forever. In fact, it usually culminates with a sad widow like her.

Question 16

Quotes

Answer 16

Quote 1: “She is not one of us; she is not like us. She might make the Unfortunate blunder of taking you seriously.”

Quote 2: “If I were young and in love with a man,” said Mademoiselle, turning on the stool and pressing her wiry hands between her knees as she looked down at Edna, who sat on the floor holding the letter, “it seems to me he would have to be some grand esprit; a man with lofty aims and ability to reach them; one who stood high enough to attract the notice of his fellow-men. It seems to me if I were young and in love I should never deem a man of ordinary caliber worthy of my devotion.”

Quote 3: Edna began to feel like one who awakens gradually out of a dream, a delicious, grotesque, impossible dream, to feel again the realities pressing into her soul. The physical need for sleep began to overtake her; the exuberance which had sustained and exalted her spirit left her helpless and yielding to the conditions which crowded her in.