Personal Response to The Awakening

The Awakening: yet another tragedy of a ‘fallen’ woman. Although initially the novel was a boring read, it turned out to be rather good.

The Awakening has many resemblances with Anna Karenina. One of them is Mr. Pontellier. He reminds me very much of Karenin. Everything of him resembles Karenin: his social status, his approach towards his wife, his actions. He is judged, by the standards of the society then, to be the perfect husband. He provides money, food, shelter and security for his family. However, there’s no intimacy or warmth between them. It’s summer time and his family is having vacation at Grand Isle. He visits them in the weekends, but does not interact with them – rather, he goes off to a nearby club. So what is the point of visiting? He certainly treats his family well, occasionally sending bonbon to his children and money to his wife, but in the same way as one treats a dog. Furthermore, he acts as if Edna is his property, and Edna, having the role of a wife, SHOULD be a mother-woman – taking care of housework and the children. These approaches are clearly wrong, but in the society then, it was deemed as the role of a husband. Therefore, he can be a despicable man. On the other hand, I do admire Mr. Pontellier. He’s intelligent, honest, and upstanding. Although his thinking towards family issues are wrong, his values of being a responsible man is one that I admire.

Another resemblance between The Awakening and Anna Karenina is Edna. Edna is married, but does not love her husband. Instead, she loves Robert. In the beginning, it was hard to interpret what was awakening inside her. However, it is revealed in the end to be independence. This is what differs Edna from Anna. All Anna wanted was Vronsky’s love and her son. In The Awakening, Edna has the love of Robert, but still she committed suicide (we assume). Why? I believe it is because she wants independence. When Robert mentioned about marrying her, her desire for independence outweighed her desire for love, and thus, she rejected him. She knows that by marrying Robert, and having children, society will only pressure her to be a mother-woman again – and not herself. She hates marriages – this can be seen from her action of trying to break her ring. She could not withstand the demands of society, to senses of herself in favour of her husband or children. Personally, I do not have strong views on the rights and independence of women. With the education today, what I’ve absorbed is that women should have equal rights with men. I’m totally fine with that. With that mentality in mind, it would make the society in The Awakening wrong, but personally I’m also fine with the way how the society then worked. If I do have a wife and have children, I’d expect her to stay at home and look after the children. However, if she wants independence, of course she can have it, but she’ll also have to tell me.

This novel made me think deeply about independence. Independence is what Edna – the inner Edna – truly desire. Independence have plagued our world so much in the past, and even now. If I was strongly controlled by someone, trapped like the parrot in the cage at the start of the novel, of course I would go crazy. When we are trapped like that, our greatest desire would naturally be independence, to be free. However, do we ever have complete independence? No, the question should be: Can we ever have complete independence? When we are young, we are controlled by our parents. We can’t always do what we like to do (such as play games the whole day). When we reach our teens, we are controlled by teachers, and also friends. It feels trapped to love someone when that someone does not love us back (teen troubles) – if this happens, we simply wish that we can choose who we love, but unfortunately that cannot be. When we reach adulthood, it may seem like we have more independence, but aren’t we still ‘trapped’? We still have limits with our freedom. We’re still controlled by the government, our jobs, our society. However, if there were no political laws to bind us, wouldn’t we lose our senses and morality? Won’t we go crazy as well?  So, to conclude on independence and freedom, I do not believe that we can ever have complete freedom/independence.

To end off, The Awakening was not as boring as I anticipated it to be. It raises the questions of identity: Who are we? What are we doing here? What is my desire? Another thing that I enjoyed about the book is its length. Although the book is short, it holds a lot of content. Overall, the book is good and I truly enjoyed it. 8/10.

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