The sexual awakening so frequently mentioned above as an essential part of Edna’s search for independence is ripened after her affair with Arobin, the man she got involved with, but whom she did not love. This aspect of women’s nature was completely new for “the true woman was passionless”33; the sexual act was one with a reproductive end and not to be considered as some kind of amusement. The mixed emotions of Edna after this new sexual experience cannot be dismissed because rather surprisingly, they are not positive in the way that Edna would feel the freedom of doing whatever she wants; rather to the contrary, she was unsure and “felt somewhat like a woman who in a moment of passion is betrayed into an act of infidelity, and realizes the significance of the act without being wholly awakened from its glamour.”34 To be guilty would be only natural in such a situation, but in the next thought it is revealed that her reproaches were connected with Robert Lebrun; that is, not with her husband but her lover. Regardless of the mixed feelings about her falling for the young seducer, Edna succumbs to his charms and caressing. Her submission to the sexual passion opens her eyes and from that point on she acts resolutely from leaving the family residence till the last protest against the social order.
32 Elizabeth Ammons, Conflicting Stories: American Writers at the Turn into the Twentieth Century (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1992) 72.
33 Martin 16.
34 Chopin 147.
5.7.1 Conscious separation – the act of independence
Edna moves out of her husband’s house and settles for an independent life, but as Michelle A. Birnbaum observes, “her sexual awakening is a white middle-class luxury.”35 Edna’s financial situation is not much dealt with, although there are important references that she has been almost fully provided by her husband. The reason she gives to Mademoiselle Reisz for moving out is that “the house, the money that provides for it, are not mine.”36 Her plans at becoming independent calculate with the money inherited from her mother and the earnings from her paintings. The best illustration of her making use of the finances is “on the threshold of a new life in her little house. The dinner, as Arobin remarks, is a coup d’état, an overthrow of her marriage, all the more an act of aggression because Léonce will pay the bill.”37 The most evident revolt against the male economic dominance is realized by making extreme use of the money to which she is supposed to have the same right as her husband just because of being his wife. Edna declares, in contrast to Lily, that she does not need any of the luxuries she has been used to and she seemingly does not show a similar resentment to
“dinginess,” but her notion of living at low cost still counts with a servant.
5.7.2 Invisible hands – prerequisite for the quest for liberty
Edna can allow herself to focus all her energies on her inner changes, while the children are taken care of by others: “[…] the very duties of motherhood, which were all the constitution of her life left her, became distasteful, and, from the instant when her infant came damp from her womb, it passed into the hands of others, to be tended and reared by them; and from youth to age her offspring often owed nothing to her personal toil.”38 Olive Schreiner in this manner criticizes the society for reducing women to the social “parasites”, deprived of any other activities than the sex functions and sustained on the toil of others. The woman is no longer required to take complete care of her children because she is accepted to fulfill the social duties (the importance of the visitation days is documented by his reaction to Edna’s failure to “take care" of the guests). Edna not only does not take care of her children (there is only one instance when she is supposed to assist the nurse and put her children to bed) but she is horrified by the act of giving birth. She does not feel anything special in “a little new life to
35 Michelle A. Birnbaum, “Alien Hands: Kate Chopin and the Colonization of Race,” In: Kate Chopin’s The Awakening: A Sourcebook 71.
36 Chopin 152.
37 Showalter 80.
38 Olive Schreiner, “Sex-Parasitism,” The House of Mirth: Authoritative Text Backgrounds and Contexts Criticism, ed. Elizabeth Ammons (New York: W. W. Norton and company, 1990) 294-295.
which she had given being, added to the great unnumbered multitude of souls that come and go”39, quite in reverse she regards the act as a torture of Nature. Although she is not required to carry out any of the physical duties, she is supposed to follow all the formalities expected from a wife of the upper-middle class. The performance requested of her is to be there for her husband as a part of his life; he has the unquestionable right to ask of her whatever he wishes in return for providing for her financially. Her husband considers one her duties to be taking care of their children because: “If it was not a mother’s place to look after children, who’s on earth was it?”40 Yet this is partly a confirmation of his ignorance of the household order, resulting from his extensive absence, and partly his superiority to take notice of the lower classes; for the answer to his question is: the nurse.
“The background of The Awakening is filled with nameless, faceless black women carefully categorized as black, mulatto, quadroon, and Griffe”41. The novel is quite precise in making all the distinctions of racial division by taking into account all the alternations of one’s parentage, nevertheless these figures are just as if items, listed in the events but without any further relevance to the overall scheme. This illusion that characterizes Edna’s own perceptions is proven false by the very fact that without those invisible persons Edna would not be able to dive in her own self, disregarding her surroundings, including her two boys.
Edna never betrays any sign that she is conscious of the fact that “her freedom comes at the expense of women of other races and a lower class”42, unlike Lily Bart, whose balancing between the rich establishment and threatening poverty makes her aware of the workers, furnishing the wealthy with their toil. Wharton portrays the lower class at least to the extent that Lily for a short period of time becomes a member of that class; Chopin, in contrast, does not pay any attention to the working class because Edna, more talented than Lily, finds the option of earning some money by her painting and secondly, luckily, her family has not been ruined, therefore she is not required to seek other ways of providing herself outside her realm of the upper class. Whereas the workers in The House of Mirth are invisible to everyone, except for Lily who, due to her position, was analyzed in the second chapter, empathizes with the lower class, the nurses and servants in The Awakening form a completely invisible background of the Creole community.
Although thanks to these unseen laborers Edna is freed from the domestic services as such, there are other duties expected of her as a member of the upper-middle class. “The
39 Chopin 211.
40 Chopin 10.
41 Elizabeth Ammons, Conflicting Stories (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992) 74.
42 Ammons 75.
good and beautiful scheme of life, then – that is to say the scheme to which we are habituated – assigns to the woman a ‘sphere’ ancillary to the activity of the man; and it is felt that any departure from the traditions of her assigned round of duties is unwomanly.”43 Léonce Pontellier finds Edna’s rejection of her tasks, which begins with her ignorance of the Tuesdays as the reception day, shocking. “Why, my dear, I should think you’d understand by this time that people don’t do such things; we’ve got to observe les convenances if we ever expect to get on and keep up with the procession.”44 Edna exhibits her freedom by disregarding the tasks that are expected of her. Mr. Pontellier’s impulse for curing this is to consider it a disease and consult a doctor.