284 Cisneros, Sandra
invites her soul to “wander in abysses of solitude.”
She enters the ocean naked and “absolutely alone.”
Kathryn Kleypas
sex and sexuality in The Awakening
The Awakening by Kate Chopin deals so explicitly
with the theme of sexuality and eroticism that it was
taken out of circulation soon after its publication.
The themes of isolation and coming of age are inte-
gral to this novel as well, but without a discussion of
her awakening sense of herself as a sexual person, no
study of the character of Edna Pontellier would be
complete. Indeed, the theme of awakening sexuality
is at the very heart of the novel and of Edna’s com-
ing of age.
The novel describes Edna’s marriage to Leonce
Pontellier in ways that make us see it as predictable
and rather dull. Like most of the husbands in Cho-
pin’s fiction, Leonce Pontellier is kind and loving but
also somewhat controlling. What becomes difficult
for Edna, although it takes her much of the novel to
discover it, is that the marriage does not fulfill her.
She is dutiful and does what she needs to do to be
in keeping with the societal expectations of her time.
However, living within the confines of marriage
makes her feel bored and alienated from her soci-
ety. In this way, Chopin can be seen to be making
judgments, not against Edna’s sexual behavior but
against the institution of marriage.
In the process of vacationing during her first
summer at Grand Isle, Edna comes into daily con-
tact with Robert, a Creole man who performs the
role of her suitor more out boredom than for any
other reason. Edna is not aware enough of Creole
traditions and mistakes the man’s attentions for
something more serious. This relationship sparks
the beginning of an epiphany, or “awakening”—an
awakening to a sexuality that she never before real-
ized she had.
Edna’s growing awareness of her own sexuality
is shown to the reader through several extended
passages. Very soon after leaving Grand Isle and
returning to her New Orleans life, Edna visits the
pianist Mademoiselle Reisz, who allows her to read
letters from Robert while she plays for her on the
piano. While listening to the piano music and read-
ing Robert’s letters about her, Edna experiences an
erotic sensuality.
As time goes on, though, it seems as if Rob-
ert himself becomes less important to Edna than
her own increasing interest in understanding and
experiencing her sensual and sexual nature. In the
absence of Robert and then her own family, and
in a growing sense of isolation from her society,
Edna begins to spend time with Alcée Arobin, a
local playboy. Her interactions with him, which
appeal to her new feelings of sensuality, come at a
time when Edna is obviously primed for this sort
of sexual experience. The passages of the novel that
describe her feelings surrounding her encounters
with Alcée are some of the most sexually charged
in the novel.
Because of the way the novel is narrated, the
main character’s experiences are filtered through
those of the narrator, and judgment is therefore
suspended. There are no moral judgments made on
Edna’s behavior. A married woman taking a lover
was unacceptable behavior to most of Chopin’s read-
ing audience of the time, and many of her readers
were looking for the author to make moral judg-
ment on Edna’s behavior, which might have made
the book acceptable to them. Lacking that moral
judgment, however, audiences and critics attacked
what they took to be Chopin’s assault on propriety
and the chastity of southern women. Edna’s death
at the end of the novel was taken in the context of a
sort of cautionary tale, meaning that it was seen as a
punishment for her sinful and unbecoming behavior.
Contemporary critics read the ending of the novel
as an inevitability of a different sort: Edna must die
because her awakening came too soon. Today, many
see Edna as behaving appropriately, and her death
is viewed as a tragedy in that her higher level of
consciousness came at a time when her society was
unable to accommodate her “awakening.”
Kathryn L. KleypasCISNEROS, SANDRA The House on
Mango Street (1983)
Since The House on Mango Street was published in
1983, it has become a standard in literature classes
across the country. This is the story of Esperanza