Comentario de Textos Literarios en Lengua Inglesa (CTLLI), 2015-2016.

Unit 1 Study
Guide

COMENTARIO DE TEXTOS
LITERARIOS EN LENGUA INGLESA
GRADO

UNIT 2 GUIDE | ANALYZING NARRATIVE TEXTS

2021-2022
GRADO EN ESTUDIOS INGLESES:
LENGUA, LITERATURA Y CULTURA
Adriana Kiczkowski (co-ordinator)
Isabel Castelao
Inés Ordiz

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 Comentario de Textos Literarios en Lengua Inglesa
STUDY GUIDE-UNIT 2
Analyzing Narrative Texts

Introduction

1. What is Prose Fiction?

1.1. Elements of Fiction
2. Textual analysis: Kate Chopin, The Awakening (novel).
2.1. Cultural and literary contextualization
2.1.1. Biographical information
2.1.2. Historical and cultural context.
2.2. Analysis of narrative structure, style and language
 Self-Study activities/answers.
2.3. Main themes in The Awakening.
3. Literary Criticism:
3.1. “Feminism Criticism”, chapter 6 of Barry’s Beginning Theory.
 Self-Study activities/answers.
3.2. Critical authors.
3.2.1. Fragment by Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar, “Infection in the
sentence: The woman writer and the anxiety of authorship” in The
madwoman in the attic. The woman writer and the 19th century literary
imagination.
 Self-Study activities/answers.

4. Self-assessment questions/Quiz (Curso Virtual/Work Plan/Unit 2).

5. References
6. Further resources

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INTRODUCTION

This unit is dedicated to the analysis of narrative texts. As an introduction to the

subject, we are going to read different definitions of the genre as well as the most
important structural elements to take into account when analyzing fiction.
Then, we will read The Awakening, the novel written by the American writer Kate
Chopin at the end of the 19th century.
We will analyze the novel from the perspective of contemporary women's studies
criticism. To do so, we will first read Chapter 6 “Feminist Criticism” by Peter Barry in
Beginning Theory. As in the previous section, you have a series of questions to guide
you in reading and understanding the text. We will also study the concept of “anxiety
of authorship” proposed by Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar in their renowned book
The Madwoman in the Attic.
In this unit you will find some audiovisual resources that will help you in your
study.
Don't forget to answer the Quiz at the end of the Study Guide, it will allow you to
see to what extent you have understood some of the key questions in this unit.

1. WHAT IS PROSE FICTION?

Stories are a part of daily life in every culture. Stories are what we tell when we return from
vacation or survive an accident or illness. They help us make sense of growing up or growing
old, of a hurricane or a war, of the country and world we live in. In conversations, a story may
be invited by the listener (“What did you do last night?”) or initiated by the teller (“Guess what I
saw when I was driving home!”). We assume such stories are true, or at least that they are meant
to describe an experience honestly. Of course, many of the stories we encounter daily, from jokes
to online games to television sitcoms to novels and films, are intended to be fiction— that is,
stories or narratives about imaginary persons and events. Every story, however, whether a news
story, sworn testimony, idle gossip, or a fairy tale, is always a version of events told from a
particular perspective (or several), and it may be incomplete, biased, or just plain made up. As
we listen to others’ stories, we keep alert to the details, which make the stories rich and
entertaining. But we also need to spend considerable time and energy making sure that we
accurately interpret what we hear: We ask ourselves who is telling the story, why the story is
being told, and whether we have all the information we need to understand it fully. Even
newspaper articles, which are supposed to tell true stories— the facts of what actually
happened— may be open to such interpretation. […] Our everyday interpretation of the stories
we hear from various sources—including other people, television, newspapers, and
advertisements— has much in common with the interpretation of short stories […]. In fact, you’ll
probably discover that the processes of reading, responding to, and writing about stories are
already somewhat familiar to you. Most readers already know, for instance, that they should pay
close attention to seemingly trivial details; they should ask questions and find out more about any
matters of fact that seem mysterious, odd, or unclear. Most readers are well aware that words can
have several meanings and that there are alternative ways to tell a story. How would someone
else have told the story? What are the storyteller’s perspective and motives? What is the context
of the tale— for instance, when is it supposed to have taken place and what was the occasion of
telling it? These and other questions from our experience of everyday storytelling are equally
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 relevant in reading fiction. Similarly, we can usually tell in reading a story or hearing it whether
it is supposed to make us laugh, shock us, or provoke some other response (Mays, 12-13).

The most studied form of prose fiction is the novel. Below, you’ll find excerpts from The
Thing Called Literature: reading, thinking, writing by Andrew Bennet and Nicholas Royle which
introduce this concept:
The novel in its modern form is a strange creature, a peculiar cross-breed or chimera. It emerged
more than three hundred years ago out of various forms of storytelling and reportage – journalism,
the epistolary (letter-writing), accounts of remarkable lives, chronicles, travellers’ tales,
romances, ballads, news-sheets, and so on. Partly for this reason, the novel is almost infinitely
malleable: it is highly diverse in its form, in its subject-matter and in its style. Constantly
evolving, the novel adheres to no consistent set of rules or procedures. One might say that the
rule of the novel is to break the rules. In fact, the novel is always – how can we put it? – novel.
The word ‘novel’ comes from the French nouvelle, which originates in the Latin novellae,
meaning ‘news’. So one way of thinking of the novel might be as a narrative that tells us
something ‘new’ – it reads you the news, so to speak. Certainly, novels that work well are those
that give you a sense that you are experiencing something new. They tell you a story, present you
with people, places, situations, events, ideas and feelings in a way that seems new, fresh, even
unprecedented. That, in a word, is what a novel is, or should be: it records, explores and prompts
you to think of something new, in a new way. […] The word ‘fiction’ also includes the short
story and novella, of course, but is in any case taken to designate the kind of writing that departs
from the real, from what we like to think of as real life. Fiction is, after all, thought of as precisely
not ‘real’ life, not true. In fact the novel is shot through, from its beginnings in the late seventeenth
century right up to today, with this question of its fictional/real status. In a sense, that is what
every novel entails: an experience of undecidability, uncertainty about the real. (Bennet and
Royle, 39).
The development of the novel indeed is characterized by a concern with the relationship between
historical authenticity and invention or fiction. So while contemporary novelists may not
explicitly claim that their narratives are historical accounts or concern actual events, they tend
nevertheless to work hard to produce effects of credibility, of ‘reality’. Contemporary fiction is
often portrayed as preoccupied, even obsessed with the relationship between its own fictionality,
its inventedness, and the real that it purports to represent. In fact, however, this has been the
condition of novel-writing from the beginning. (Bennet and Royle, 42).
“Novels are the great art form of mind-reading. Indeed, we would suggest, they reflect on other
minds in richer and more nuanced ways than any other discourse, including psychiatry,
psychology and psychoanalysis. Novels allow us to know, or perhaps more accurately to imagine
or believe that we know, precisely what goes on in the minds of others, to understand other minds.
So in reading, discussing, studying and writing about a novel, it is important to consider how it
presents other minds, how it creates and plays with this illusion. (Bennet and Royle, 45).

1.1. Elements of Fiction.

Kelly J. Mays proposes a series of questions that will help us to organize our
reading and subsequent reflection on a narrative text, taking into account the
different elements that make it up and that we must keep in mind in our analysis.

Questions about the Elements of Fiction

• Expectations: What do you expect?

° from the title? from the first sentence or paragraph?

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 ° after the first events or interactions of characters?
° as the conflict is resolved?
• What happens in the story?
° Do the characters or the situation change from the beginning to the end?
° Can you summarize the plot? Is it a recognizable kind or genre of story?
• How is the story narrated?
° Is the narrator identified as a character?
° Is it narrated in the past or present tense?
° Is it narrated in the first, second, or third person?
° Do you know what every character is thinking, or only some characters,
or none?
• Who are the characters?
° Who is the protagonist(s) (hero, heroine)?
° Who is the antagonist(s) (villain, opponent, obstacle)?
° Who are the other characters? What is their role in the story?
° Do your expectations change with those of the characters, or do you
know more or less than each of the characters?
• What is the setting of the story?
° When does the story take place?
° Where does it take place?
° Does the story move from one setting to another? Does it move in one direction
only or back and forth in time and place?
• What do you notice about how the story is written?
° What is the style of the prose? Are the sentences and the vocabulary simple or
complex?
° Are there any images, figures of speech or symbols?
° What is the tone or mood? Does the reader feel sad, amused, worried, curious?
• What does the story mean? Can you express its theme or themes?
° Answers to these big questions may be found in many instances in your answers
to the previous questions. The story’s meaning or theme depends on all its
features (Mays 15).

For study of the elements of fiction, we have prepared the following

VIDEOCLASS:

 Elements of Fiction by Dr. Dídac Llorens Cubedo

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2. TEXTUAL ANALYSIS.

The Awakening by Kate Chopin.

2.1 Cultural and literary contextualization

2.1.1. Biographical information

Kate Chopin (née Katherine O’Flaherty) was born in

Saint Louis, Missouri, in 1850. Her mother was a
Creole, her father, a prosperous Irish immigrant.
Creoles (also known as Acadian or Cajuns), were the
French immigrants and their descendants from the
Northern Canadian French colony into the South of
the United States. The O’Flaherty was a wealthy and
socially well-placed family due to the father business
and lived in a colonial mansion. French, patua and
English were spoken in the house. Thanks to her
mother and grandmother, important female figures for
Chopin, she received a good education based on
European and French culture. She went to a Catholic
board school, where the nuns also encouraged
European intellectual reading and critical thinking.
When her father died, the family became strongly
matrilineal and the women in the house organized the
business and house, surviving the cruel times of the American Civil War (1860-1865).
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 Kate Chopin married a Creole from Louisiana when she was twenty years old.
They spoke French as first language and lived in the cosmopolitan city of New Orleans
for many years, where Chopin had several children and dedicated herself to raising them,
reading and playing music, since she was a talented pianist. Her husband supported her
independent and intellectual spirit and both of them enjoyed raising and educating their
big family.
They moved to a small town, to start a cotton plantation when her husband’s
business in New Orleans broke. Chopin was soon known as an eccentric, solitary but
amiable woman in the community. She used to horse-ride, smoke cigars in the porch and
take long walks on her own, acts of subversive autonomy that were criticized by a
conservative Southern society that rigidly established feminine stereotyped behaviors for
women.

A professional writing career

When her husband died of tropical fever, she decided to move to Saint Louis with
her mother to have family support. Unfortunately, her mother died just a year later.
Widowed and alone Chopin devoted herself completely to writing and became a
professional writer at age 35. These years in Saint Louis were extremely prolific: she
composed music, wrote her first novel, At Fault (1890), and two collections of short
stories: Bayou Folk (1894) and A Night in Acadie (1897. She founded the first literary
society of Saint Louis and was in touch with the intellectuals of the city.

Reception of The Awakening

Kate Chopin wrote The Awakening (1899) in two years and thought of it her most
complex and mature work since in its writing she condensed her rich intellectual baggage
and her eclectic literary influences. But after the publication of this book, expected to be
a success due to the previous literary reception of her “regional” or “local color” stories
and novel (i.e. depicting Southern colonial life in a realistic way and following the precepts
of female sentimental novels), her life changed radically. The Awakening was banned
from libraries and considered a scandal, being defined as “sex fiction” and morally
inadequate. Some of the literary reviewers defined the book as “an essentially vulgar
story”, or, “it is sad and mad and bad”; one of them implied “To think of Kate Chopin, who
once contented herself with mild yarns about genteel Creole life…blowing us a hot blast
like that!” (Gilbert and Gubar 991). Even Willa Cather, the influential American female
writer, strongly criticized the book and coined it the “Creole Bovary”.
Chopin justified herself in the following terms:

Having a group of people at my disposal, I thought it might be entertaining (to myself) to

throw them together and see what would happen. I never dreamed of Mrs. Pontellier making
such a mess of things and working out her own damnation as she did. If I had had the slightest
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 intimation of such a thing I would have excluded her from the company. (Gilbert and Gubar
9)

But despite this light-hearted retreat as self-defence did not prevent her career as
a writer from suffering a terrible blow. Not only was her social life affected, but she also
gave up intention of further publication, as was the case for her last story “A Storm”. The
publishing house that was going to publish her last collection of short stories A Vocation
and a Voice, withdrew its acceptance. Her health also deteriorated quickly until her death
few years later in 1904.
The book quickly disappeared from print and was totally forgotten in the American
canon, only to be recovered as a literary gem of the fin-de-siècle American literature
more than half a century later. An inexhaustible corpus of criticism emerged on the author
and The Awakening, principally by the hand of the flourishing feminist literary criticism of
the 1970s and 1980s. Nowadays, it is the fifth most read book in first year University
courses in the United States; the book has become a classic in American literary history.

2.1.2. Historical and cultural context

Turn-of-the-century or fin-de-siècle radical changes

In order to understand the cultural contextualization of the novel we have to

take into account the socio-historical and literary phenomena taking place at the end
of the 19th century in the United States. The “turn-of-the-century”, as it is called, or
fin-de-siècle, is located in the last decades of the Victorian period (1880-1900) and
marked drastic changes in Anglo-American and European societies, opening the field
to new orders in Western society, culture and thought into modernity and the
Twentieth century.

In the United States, the industrial and economic revolution was making of
the country a world-leader of capitalism and materialist success, with the consequent
growth of urban cities, rich middle-class and bourgeois values and the decline of rural
America and its way of life. The disillusionment of intellectuals towards this new
materialist society, together with a reaction to mid-nineteenth century American
romanticism, and the influence of European realism in fiction, made writers focus
their interest on a sociological and realistic portray of society and culture. Realism
wanted to emphasize the role and impact of social changes into the new modern
individual, but also the importance of the subjective perspective of reality within the
individual and his/her agency and interaction with the environment (examples are,
among others, Henry James’s psychological realism and Edith Wharton’s social
novels).

On the other hand, scientific development and philosophical thought advanced

shocking views on the human being. These were very different to the ones
established during the nineteenth century, which were based on religion and fixed
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social structures. Darwin’s theory and Nietzsche’s philosophy helped to proclaim the
“death of God” and placed the emphasis on incipient social and cultural reorganizing
paradigms on scientific enquiry and individual-centered ethics.

In Europe, apart from French realism, other avant-garde aesthetic

revolutions, such as symbolism (Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Swinburn) or British turn-of-
the-century Decadentism (Oscar Wilde) were being developed. These movements
conceived art and creative impulse in radical different ways to the Victorian utilitarian
perspective of writing as a didactic tool to teach decorum and maintain the social
order. The aesthetic value, instead of the functional value of art, condensed in the
Decadents’ axiom of “art for art’s sake”, came forefront, with two important
consequences that would settle throughout the beginning of twentieth-century
Modernism: art and writing will separate from the masses and mainstream readers,
becoming “high art”; and artistic medium (e.g. language in literature) would cease to
be transparent in order to represent a certain reality to become signifying or
meaningful in its own form.

The New Woman and the “ideology of true womanhood”

It could be argued that one of the most important cultural revolution of the
turn-of-the-century Anglo-American historical period was the questioning of gender
roles in society by the activism of the first-wave feminist movement and the
phenomenon of the New Woman. If there were two clear women’s movements during
these decades, they would be 1) a suffrage movement that searched the vote for
women appealing to the conservative feminine models of mothers and educators,
and 2) a more radical feminist movement that advocated for sexual liberation for
women and professional equality accessing the public space like men did. The figure
of the New Woman had more in common with this second political feminist vision.
She represented the cultural and social phenomenon of the liberated woman who
pursued professional careers, rebelled against the institution of marriage, and had
creative curiosity and ambition as well as intellectual autonomy. Elaine Showalter
states the term was coined in a journal in 1894 and the main feature was “social
nonconformity” contesting to all the previous nineteenth-century impositions on
women and femininity as marriage, motherhood and domesticity.

The New Women rejected conventional female roles, redefined female sexuality, and
asserted their rights to higher education and the professions.

[New Womanhood was a] product of new women’s colleges, drawn to urban centers and in
rebellion against their mothers and marriage. […] In American cities, especially New York,
bohemian New Women, including art students, editors, actresses, and journalists, ‘could be
seen on the street, walking alone, or on the omnibuses […] marked by a graceful, athletic
bearing and the lack of a wedding ring’. […] They no longer saw themselves as ‘friendless,
forlorn, and sexually vulnerable,’ like the Hagar figures in nineteenth-century women’s
fiction, but rather as daring modern heroines in search of feminine self-realization. (Showalter

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 244).

This new feminist phenomenon would revolutionize womanhood in the

twentieth-century and would change forever the ways women would see themselves
in Western societies, particularly in relation to their feminine identity and their
relationships to the public (as opposed to the private). This change would break what
is known as the Victorian “cult or ideology of true womanhood”, deeply established in
nineteenth century’s culture and society.

The Southern states of the United States took the cult of true womanhood to
the extreme in their own version of the “Southern lady”, and younger version
“Southern belle”. The “Southern lady” was demanded to construct her feminine
identity onto the virtues of submission, religiousness, rectitude, morality and
domesticity; she had to be delicate, charming, seductive, without being overtly
sensual, and intelligent to organize the plantation household. In short, the femininity
of the Southern lady was a socio-political tool to maintain the Southern lifestyle and
slavery system. No wonder the turn-of-the-century New Woman was seen as a
danger to the South and took a longer and more marginal path to be heard in its
society.

The passivity (towards the masculinist power to design his own place and
ways of living) and the self-sacrifice (since a woman renounced to build her own life)
required by this cult of true womanhood was clearly exposed in the famous poem by
Coventry Patmore “The Angel in the House” (1885). But as Gilbert and Gubar
suggest, at the turn-of-the-century Anglo-American socio-historical context, “while
moralists, educators, and physicians continued to explain to women why they should
lead decorous, selfless private lives as wives and mothers, a number of artists
responded angrily and triumphantly to the fact that many women no longer did so”
(1985: 956); and, definitely, Kate Chopin proved this in The Awakening (1899).

2.2. Analysis of narrative structure, style and language

Before you read this analysis of the text, we recommend you finish the novel.
While you’re reading the analysis, try to think of examples that prove each of the points
made. For example: the analysis says that “The narrative stance oscillates between
showing intense descriptive language that reflects approval towards the thoughts of
Edna’s independence and a more judicial voice that presents Edna sometimes as
impulsive”. Can you think of a specific example in the novel where this can be clearly
seen? Doing this will help you approach the text as a whole and it will make it easier for
you to work on the more specific self-study questions proposed below.

The author divided the book in 39 Chapters that show short scenes and brief
events. She did not choose to title the chapters but to number them with a clear
division of content between the first sixteen chapters that are set in the summer resort
of Grand Isle, and the following chapters that are set in the city of New Orleans with
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a final return to Grand Isle marking a circular narrative structure. The spatial setting
of the novel is between the seacoast and natural scenery and the cosmopolitan
background of the big Southern city. The temporal frame is short, comprising no more
than two years in the life of the main character.

Regarding the narrative voice, there is an omniscient third person narrator

in the story, who is not detached, as we could expect by the influence of French
realism, but who, contrarily takes a fluid and sometimes contradictory narrative
stance towards the description of Edna, her thoughts and actions. Most of the
information about the psychic life and inner development of Edna is done through the
narrative voice. Probably the most important fact about the book that caused the
harsh reception it received was the fact that the narrative voice does not show moral
condemnation but, as Sullivan and Smith cleverly evidence, the narrator also lacks a
constant and steady effusive sympathy towards the character. The narrative stance
oscillates between showing intense descriptive language that reflects approval
towards the thoughts of Edna’s independence and a more judicial voice that presents
Edna sometimes as impulsive, hedonistic and lacking reflection on consequences:
“the partisan narrative stance speaks for a romantic vision of life’s possibilities; the
alternate stance for a realistic understanding and acceptance of human limits […] To
some readers, the sympathetic view speaks so movingly that they do not hear the
sober realism also richly represented in the novel” (Sullivan and Smith 156-157).

The narrative style used by Chopin is close to a musical structure of repetitions

and poetic language. It mixes realistic descriptions with repetition of key motives,
symbols, images (e.g. sea, nature, night, solitude, food, sentences, swimming,
music). There are scenes of lyricism, fantasy, and mythical atmosphere together with
more traditional, even satirical portrays of social realism. We find magical, mythical
moments of “epiphanies” in relation to Edna’s awakening through an impressionistic
narrative style that uses repetitions and narrative rhythm as music. There is a poetic
unity and organic essence in the narration that moves the plot towards Edna’s rebirth.

As Joyce Dyer argues, the use of symbols and images in the narrative
structure is not only an aesthetic or ornamental matter, but it complements the
thematic and content of the novel and Edna’s story. Without this imagery, the novel
would lose much of its brightness and density, and Edna Pontellier might lose her
chance of being understood. […] It is an essential artistic component. The book
depends on symbolism to define Edna’s psychological dilemma and romantic
sensibility; to explain the limitations and dangers of her new vision; and finally, to help
readers understand why Edna walks into the sea. […] Chopin’s symbols elaborately
and meticulously connect to tell the complete and complex story of Edna Pontellier.
(Dyer 126).

Form and content join in Chopin’s narrative mastery, since through the
symbolic images and repetitions, the author describes the psychological
development of the character: the quest for self-awareness and realization, the
search for freedom through art and self-reflection and the foreseen difficulties of such
quest. Chopin, as Dyer, defines her, was a “psychological symbolist” (126).
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 Chopin’s style is “distinctively poetic, visual, and sensuous” (idem.), as if the
language in the novel was opening itself to the reader at the same time as Edna’s
inner self and sensual body opens to her own awakening. The warm colors, the heat,
and the sea atmosphere of the Gulf coast become a propitious nest for this blooming
of Edna and the reader’s literary senses and sensitivity. The sea, as a main symbol
in the book, represents completeness, sensuality, eroticism and spiritual awakening,
and it includes the double meaning of rebirth and the immensity of existential death.
The sea appears at the beginning and end of the story for a reason.

The sun and the moon symbolize a bright understanding of a new self and the
magical and mythical atmosphere of Grand Isle, where ancestral spirituality also
inhabits and touches Edna to change her forever-- with the help of Robert.

The symbolism of spaces is important in the novel. The meadow at Kentucky

represents also the freedom of movement and being the sea provides Edna with,
joining the image of sea and earth. The city of New Orleans gives her the opportunity
to walk and stroll as a New Woman flaneuse. But it is equally important to be able to
understand, as readers the duality or oppositions concealed by the symbols. The
patriarchal house is a space of confinement for her soul, but the “bird cage” little
house is at the same time a liberation and the beginning of her end.

The bird is a symbol that appears as representing freedom from constriction

and achievement of the aim at independence. However, her back, as Mrs. Reisz
suggests, could not be strong enough to grow wings and it is present in the last scene
to remind Edna of this and at the same time of her eagerness to fly.

Flowers, smells, trees, food, awake in the reader throughout the novel the
predominance of the senses and Edna’s body. Music becomes a main path of self-
discovery, introspection and connection with her artistic soul.

Stylistic analysis reveals Chopin’s careful and masterful use of language

(lexis, grammatical structures, speech acts, narrative stance and figures of speech).

2.3. Main Themes in The Awakening

Solitude: The subtitle of the novel was “A Solitary Soul”. We could interpret the
story, more than as a romantic story, as a metaphysical quest, more a philosophical
than a romantic story.

Awakening: The book is full of images of “vision” and “space”, pay attention to all
the descriptions of eyes, gaze, look, etc. The sea is a symbol of freedom and
awakening too. Basically, we could say that three elements help Edna’s process of
inner awakening: the sea and nature at Grand Isle, Robert and romantic love, and
Adele and Ms Reisz. Adele represents the homosocial (homosociality means same-
sex relationships that are not of a romantic or sexual nature, such as friendship,
mentorship, or others) support for Edna at Grand Isle, representing motherhood,
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female understanding, the domestic woman and the equation of “love without art” or
love through the family but not individual and artistic searching. On the other hand,
Ms Reisz represents a different female model, the independent single artist, the
equation “art without love”: artistic and individual freedom with the punishment for
the woman artist of not being able to fit in a family. The first and second part of the
book oscillates between these two figures and equations but Edna finally decides to
refuse both models choosing death, which could be interpreted as a celebratory
vindication of her independent soul, saying: if these are the only two models of
femininity society can offer, neither of them is complete and fulfilling.

Romantic love: This is an ideal of romantic fusion that was in Edna’s set of beliefs
when younger and that is awakened at Grand Isle by the hope that Roberts
represents. It is an important element in her awakening, but it is an ideal that belongs
to fantasy. Edna seems to stay in this part of the fantasy and idealism, while Robert,
mainly in the second part of the book, becomes a more realistic character. Although
he is the engine for her self-awakening to romance, he is the one posing a break to
idealism, by his decision of running to Mexico or by leaving her for being a married
woman at the end. Also, it is significant that it is when they are both confessing their
love for each other when the news of Adele’s childbirth breaks them apart, it is
another element of realism that brings back the idea of motherhood and Edna’s role
as wife and mother. Romantic love is an interesting element also because some
readers may find this is in fact the key aspect of the novel, but is romantic love the
sole reason for Edna’s awakening or just an engine of inner changes that makes her
realize much more about herself? An excuse for finding herself, first critiques only
suggested about adultery, selfish look for self-satisfaction and the result, they do not
see solitude and search as the other part of the story.

Death and suicide: This is the most controversial moment in the book. Let’s analyze
what leads Edna to her death. First, the fantasy of romantic fusion is broken by realist
Robert’s goodbye. Second, the fantasy of independence is broken by Adele’s
childbirth, which reminds her of women’s bodily and social function, reminding her
of her own kids and responsibility as a mother. There is no way out for Edna, neither
for romance nor for independence, but she is giving up neither her independence
nor her idea of romance. The suicidal swim at the end of the book is ambiguous. We
never see her dead, she is active all the time. It is somehow a positive death since
it represents her will against society, it is also a celebration of femininity since it
represents the female body fusing with the sea. The last visions from childhood could
be interpreted as liberatory (the “meadow of freedom”) or oppressive (gender codes
of authority and their seductiveness represented by the cavalier and bees).

Transformation/Metamorphosis/Künstlerroman: A Künstlerroman is the story of

the process of formation of the artistic soul, Portrait of a Young Artist by James Joyce
is an example of it. It is a story of initiation and discovery of intellectual and artistic
sensitivity by the main character that grows from adolescence into maturity and
decides to become an artist. The Awakening is this story of initiation or awakening
on a woman that discovers her artistic and spiritual soul. The issue of transformation
and metamorphosis is interesting because it is one of the first novels centered on
female transformation and development of the artistic inner soul.

13
 Sexuality/Eroticism/Spirituality: Edna’s spiritual search is channeled through
eroticism.

LISTEN TO the following video to appreciate the acoustic dimension of the text.

The Awakening (fragment) by Isabel Castelao and Amparo Prior

 Self-Study activities

Here are some questions or exercises to guide you through the reading and
understanding of the novel.

In no case should they substitute the complete reading of the novel. They do not intend
to represent the only approach or interpretation of the work. First, you are encouraged to
follow a critical reading of the book on your own, try to answer the Self-Study activities
suggested and find pieces of evidence in the text to support your answers.
References to pages are from Kate Chopin, The Awakening and Selected Stories.
Penguin Classics with an Introduction by Sandra M. Gilbert, 1986. This is a very good
edition and introduction; however, the novel is available as e-text at Project Gutenberg.

PART I: Chapters 1-16

1. What do you think the “parrot” symbolizes? (Ch.1)

2. Localize geographically the Lebrun cottages by the description you find at the
beginning of the chapter. (Ch.1)

3. Analyze the language used and the characteristics of the description of Mrs.
Pontellier’s eyes at the beginning of the chapter. What does it tell us about the
character? (Ch.2)

4. What do we know about Edna’s relationship to Robert Lebrun and her husband
by the end of chapter 3?

5. Why does Edna cry? Analyze the paragraph that starts “An indescribable
oppression…” (Ch.3)

6. What does the narrator mean by “In short, Mrs. Pontellier was not a mother-
woman”? How is compared Edna and Adele’s approach to maternity in this
chapter? (Ch.4)

7. Describe how the society of Creoles are characterized in chapter 4 (Ch.4) and
what consequences these characteristics have for our understanding of Robert’s
intimacy to Edna (Ch.5)
14
8. Analyze the symbolic language used and the relevant event being narrated in this
chapter (Ch.6)

9. How is nature described, and the difference between their physical characteristics,
in Edna and Adele’s “walk to the beach”? (Ch.7)

10. Why do you think the author emphasizes Edna and Adele’s female bond in chapter
7? (Ch.7)

11. Analyze Edna’s assertion “sometimes I feel this summer as if I were walking
through the green meadow again; idly, aimlessly, unthinking and unguided”. What
is the paralleled symbolic meaning between the meadow and the sea? What is
she running away from as a child through the meadow? Where is this childhood
memory located? (Ch.7)

12. What is the importance of Adele and Robert’s conversation held in chapter 8?
(Ch.8)

13. How does the narrator portray the first encounter between Mrs. Reisz and Edna?

14. Analyze the symbolism, use of language and relevance within the plot of this
important excerpt in chapter 10:

Edna has attempted all summer to learn to swim. […] A certain ungovernable dread hung
about her when in the water, unless there was a hand nearby that might reach out and
reassure her. But that night she was like the little tottering, stumbling, clutching child, who
of a sudden realizes its powers, and walks for the first time alone, boldly and with over-
confidence. She could have shouted for joy […]. A feeling of exultation overtook her, as
if some power of significant import had been given her to control the working of her body
and her soul. She grew daring and reckless, overestimating her strength. She wanted to
swim far out, where no woman had swum before. (p. 73)

15. How do you understand that this experience infused also in Edna “a quick vision
of death”? (Ch.10)

16. What kind of bond is created between Edna and Robert in the conversation they
have after the swim? (Ch.10)

17. How does Edna rebel against her husband and how does it make her feel? (Ch.11)

18. Analyze the symbolism of Edna’s rest at Madame Antoine’s cot at Cheniere
Caminada. The sensual perception of the body, the bath, the food, the room, how
does the narrator portray this scene? How is this related to Edna’s process of
awakening? (Ch.13)

19. What events wind down the plot from chapters 14-16, framing the end of the
summer and Edna’s stay at Grand Isle?

15
 PART II: Chapters 17-34

1. What is Edna’s first act of rebellion against her husband and domestic life once
the Pontelliers come back to New Orleans? (Ch.17)

2. Compare the description of place in chapter 1 and 17. What are the changes,
differences, and similarities? What does the narrator make the reader expect
throughout this part of the plot?

3. Highlight paragraphs that show Edna’s depression at this part of the plot. (Ch.18
and 19)

4. How does the relation between Edna and Adele change in chapter 19. Why does
Edna feel sorry for her friend? Analyze the last paragraph in this chapter.
(Ch.19)

5. Why do you think Edna leans on Ms. Reisz’s friendship in this section of the
book? How important is Edna’s decision to become an artist now? What’s Ms.
Reisz’s advice? (Ch.21)

6. Why does Edna’s husband visit the doctor? How is patriarchal authority
represented in this chapter? (Ch.22)

7. How does the doctor describe Edna’s change of attitude in chapter 23?

8. Analyze the figure of Alce Arobin. Why is he introduced in the plot? How
important is it to understand Edna’s change in relation to her sexuality and
sensuality? (Ch.24,25)

9. Analyze the conversation between Ms. Reisz and Edna when she tells her of her
decision to move and live alone. (Ch.26)

10. Analyze the image of the bird in chapter 27.

11. Why is Edna giving a dinner party? This chapter is full of descriptive and
symbolic language; analyze the richness of detail and the ritual implied in the
ceremony of the table, food, ornaments. (Ch.30)

12. Analyze the following paragraph, how is Edna described? What is the
importance of this event in relation to the whole story?

The golden shimmer of Edna’s satin gown spread in rich folds on either side of her. There
was a soft fall of lace encircling her shoulders. It was the color of her skin, without the
glow, the myriad living tints that one may sometimes discover in vibrant flesh. There was
something in her attitude, in her whole appearance when she leaned her head against the
high backed chair and spread her arms, which suggested the regal woman, the one who
rules, who looks on, who stands alone.

13. Describe the events happening in chapter 32. Highlight a paragraph that
expresses how Edna feels since she moved away.

14. What is Adele’s opinion about Edna’s decision? (Ch.33) What is the surprising
16
 even happening in this chapter?

15. Analyze the declaration of love and the conversation between Edna and Robert.
What does Edna tell him that he is not quite able to understand? Do you think
Robert is ready to assimilate and support Edna’s new independent self and self-
reliance? (Ch.36)

16. Analyze the importance of Adele’s childbirth at this point in the plot. Why do you
think the author chooses to introduce this event when Edna and Robert are
together? What does Adele tell Edna at the end of the chapter? (Ch.37)

17. What are Edna’s thoughts in chapter 38?

18. Why does the narrator return us to the geographical location and atmosphere of
Grand Isle? Think about the circular narrative structure in the book. (Ch.39)

19. What are her last thoughts and conclusions about her husband and children
before undressing at the beach? (Ch.39)

20. What is the symbolism of becoming naked in front of the sea? What is the
symbolism of the falling bird into the water? (Ch.39)

21. “The voice of the sea is seductive, never ceasing, whispering, clamoring,
murmuring, inviting the soul to wander in abysses of solitude” This is an exact
repetition of words found in chapter 6. Why do you think the author uses this
technique of repetition? What other elements are repeated at the end of this
chapter that have appeared at some point in other parts of the plot?

22. Analyze the very end of the novel. What happens at the end? What are your
feelings towards Edna as reader? Do you think this is an ambiguous ending? Why
does the book end with a faraway childhood memory?

 Guidance for answering the questions

PART I: Chapters 1-16

This part of the book is set at Grand Isle, the summer resort at the coast of New
Orleans. Throughout these chapters we see the process of “awakening” to self-
consciousness, sensuality and sexuality of Edna Pontellier, the heroine of the
novel: a process of inner vision through existential solitude and communion with
nature and love that will give way to the rest of the events in the second part of
the story. Here are some important passages in different chapters in this first
section of the book.

CH.1: Pay attention to the introduction to the description of the social atmosphere
and exoticism of Grand Isle.

17
  Our first encounter is with the “parrot” talking in French. What is the
symbolism of this first image? It is maybe a way to introduce us to the Creole
community, the fact of presenting the reader with a bilingual situation could
represent cultural exile or alienation. Could the parrot represent Edna
herself, anticipating her inner alienation as if her understanding of her
awakening paralleled learning a new language no one understood? It may
just represent the bicultural atmosphere of Creoles (French-American).

 Next description is of Mr. Pontellier: pay attention to the emphasis on his

vision and glasses, the power of male gaze, and how important the way
masculine vision (symbolizing patriarchal society’s vision) will define and
exclude parts of Edna’s identity.

 Pay attention to the way Edna and Robert are introduced in the book. They
are coming walking from the beach under a big white sunshade. There is
an exuberant description of nature and the presence of the sea for the first
time, our gaze as readers also spreads beyond towards the sea horizon and
the gulf.

CH.2: This chapter is devoted to the description of Edna. Pay particular attention
to the description of her eyes (in contrast to the description of her husband’s gaze
in chapter 1). So much emphasis on eyes involves the importance of gaze, vision,
the way to perceive the world and the inner self for Edna throughout the book. It
is through her power of “seeing” as a metaphor for “awakening” that she reaches
a new level of consciousness and self. In this chapter we also learn Edna comes
from Mississippi, not belonging to the Creole community.

CH.3: There is a quarrel between Edna and her husband that lets the reader know
about his attitude towards her role as wife and mother. Edna’s cry is an important
event, it is the first sign of her soul’s discontent with her situation as a woman. Her
cry in the middle of the night, inspired by the sea and nature (take into account
the presence of the sea as another character in the narrative) is described as a
release from a kind of “oppression”, maybe the first sign of her restlessness
towards awakening.

CH.6: At this point, the reader has been introduced to Edna’s close relations with
Adele Ratignolle and Robert Lebrun, the former based on female bonding
(although both women are very different) the latter based on sensual, spiritual and
romantic bonding. We have also known about Edna’s painting and her feeling out
of place with certain Creole cultural behaviors, above all in relation to intimacy and
the way they express affection.

 This chapter presents the first sign of awakening in Edna by following her
instincts and going swimming with Robert, letting her will free. It is a brief
chapter with a dense symbolic description of nature and the sea. The
harmony Edna is acquiring in relation with her natural surroundings and the
sea is represented in the narrative voice that for the first time becomes
poetic, musical, organic; as a lullaby that places the reader in an emphatic
18
 position in relation to Edna. Here are some relevant fragments:

In short, Mrs. Pontellier was beginning to realize her position in the universe as a human being,
and to recognize her relations as an individual to the world within and about her. This may seem
like a ponderous weight of wisdom to descend upon the soul of a young woman of twenty-eight.
[…] But the beginning of things, of a world especially, is necessarily vague, tangled, chaotic, and
exceedingly disturbing. How few of us ever emerge from such beginning! How many souls perish
in its tumult!
The voice of the sea is seductive; never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting the
soul to wander for a spell in abysses of solitude; to lose itself in mazes of inward contemplation.
The voice of the sea speaks to the soul. The touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in its
soft, close embrace. (p. 57)

CH.7: This is a very significant chapter due to the female bonding between Edna and
Adele at the beach. Pay attention to the sensuous description of their clothes, the position
sitting together, the touch of their hands, the complicity and intimacy represented by the
narrator, and how they are sitting facing the sea, that space of liberty that provides
freedom of thought.

 Edna describes in length a vision and memory from her childhood, how she was
walking through the tall grass meadow feeling free and escaping from mass—this
is a vision that will be repeated at the end of the book. Think about the parallelism
between the symbols of the meadow of her childhood and the sea at Grand Isle;
about the relation between the walking child opening her way through the tall grass
and Edna learning to swim in the sea, and how meadow and sea represent a self-
assertive environment against the constriction of a patriarchal society (as a child
symbolized by mass and family, at present represented by the cottages where she
becomes wife and mother).

 She also mentions her belief in romantic love and romance as an ideal that has
shaped and held her soul and personality until finding her husband, who was her
guide towards a more realistic way of living. Romance is a part of Edna’s belief
system that will be awakened this summer, as recovering a part that was hidden
or repressed in her.

CH.10: This is the chapter of the collective night swim. Edna felt deeply moved by
Mademoiselle Reisz’s music as a spiritual exercise that brought her alert and in contact
with her inner self and nature. Edna has been trying to learn to swim the whole summer.

 As the last stage of her “awakening” process, Edna finds herself able to swim
alone at the sea that night. The description of that night by the narrator is symbolic
and full of magic. It is interesting that it is a collective swim (they are all there, as
representing society) but Edna’s “transformation” or “metamorphosis”, which
occurs at the moment she is able to swim without Robert or her husband’s help,
is revelatory: it is a solitary act that represents the strength of her female soul
finding her freedom against societal restrictions and expectations. She turns
around and faces the horizon, moving ahead and away from them; however, as a
child who has just discovered how to walk alone, she feels afraid of the
possibilities of freedom and goes back to her husband.

 The night walk towards the cottages with Robert reveals not only their complicity,
19
 but also how they both understand the almost magical moment of what is
happening to both of them, and how he understands the importance of Edna’s
awakening. Somehow, Edna is not alone. The narrator impregnates the event with
an atmosphere of spirituality, magical and symbolic nature that is shared by both
characters.

CH. 12-13: These are the chapters when Edna and Robert go by boat to a mass at
Cheniere Caminada, an adjacent island. It is the first action and decision Edna takes
after “awakening” to her true self, the inner self-consciousness that she felt as a
metamorphosis the night before at the sea.

 Pay attention to how Edna is in connection with her wishes and desires. We are
presented with an independent and autonomous woman who decides before
everyone gets up that she is going to call Robert to go together to Cheniere
Caminada. She seems to be in control of her life and decisions.

 Once there, pay attention to the symbolic weight of all the events: her headache
at mass could symbolize her spiritual rejection of male authority through church;
her sleep at Madame Antoine’s cot has a fairy-tale sensual atmosphere: the white
bedroom, her loosened clothes and hair in bed—they are like rituals towards a
rebirth, symbolized by the bath after she wakes up, as a baptism welcoming her
new soul and self. She is in total contact now with her sensual and spiritual self,
she eats what and when she wishes, she leaves with Robert when she wishes,
she is freed from children and family.

CH.16: This chapter marks the end of the summer and the first section of the book. We
have known that Robert is leaving, and we start seeing signs of depression in Edna.
There is a relevant conversation between Adele and Edna that gives us light to
understand what will happen later. By now you should be conscious that Adele
represents the dutiful mother and wife, the kind of conventional woman who is happy with
the role society has imposed on her. Edna, as represented by the narrative voice, is
treated as a contrasting model of femininity to that of Adele’s, above all in relation to
maternity. In this chapter there is a recollection of a conversation between the two in
which Edna outlines her attitude toward motherhood within her new understanding of
herself. Keep in mind this paragraph to understand better the events at the end of the
book.

Edna had once told Madame Ratignolle that she would never sacrifice herself for her children, or
for anyone. Then had followed a rather heated argument the two women did not appear to
understand each other or to be talking the same language. Edna tried to appease her friend, to
explain: “I would give up the unessential I would give my money, I would give my life for my
children but I wouldn’t give myself. I can’t make it more clear it’s only something which I am
beginning to comprehend, which is revealing itself to me.

PART II: Chapters 17-39

This part of the book is set at New Orleans, in Mr. and Mrs. Pontellier’s residence. It
describes how Edna’s life starts changing due to her understanding of her new self and
her new awakened soul and how it crashes with society’s expectations. This new
consciousness of her independence leads her to take vital decisions, among which is the
decision to live alone. These chapters describe the development of her new life until her
20
final decision in the last chapter.

CH.17: This chapter opens with the description of the family house at Esplanade Street
in New Orleans. It starts paralleling the beginning of the previous section, with a
description of Mr. Pontellier at the house, instead of at the cottages, emphasizing his
possessions and controlling role within the family home.

 Edna dares to change her daily routine by going out of the house and not attending
the visitors. When her surprised husband asks her, she says she did it because
she felt like going out. We see a trace of liberty in this action.

 There is a symbolic crashing of the wedding ring in her room when she is alone
and looks for solace looking through the window at night. This can be interpreted
as a wish for liberation and escape from marriage.

CH. 18: In this chapter, Edna visits Adele’s family. At the end of the chapter, we find a
paragraph (last paragraph that starts “Edna felt depressed rather than soothed after
leaving them”) that is revealing of the power of her ability to see things differently. She
feels pity for Adele’s “domestic harmony” and her inability to feel “life’s delirium”. She
starts realizing that family life does not suit her soul.

CH. 19: In this chapter Edna’s husband starts worrying about her mental health, this
restlessness is somehow transmitted to the reader through different channels. Her
husband is more than anything angry at his wife’s decision to neglect her wifely duties.
We, as readers, are told by the narrator about Edna’s mood swings. In this chapter she
also decides to devote herself to painting as her own personal medium for self-
expression, as a way of taking care of her soul’s needs and growing as an individual.

CH.21: Edna visits Mademoiselle Reisz in the city. Her relationship with the pianist will
become central in the development of the new Edna in this part of the book. Pay attention
in what ways and how differently Edna was attached to Adele at Grand Isle and now she
is to older Ms. Reisz: they represent different female models, but both provide Edna with
female bonding and friendship.

 Ms. Reisz tells her she had received a letter from Robert from Mexico. So, Robert
enters the plot and Edna’s life again.

 Edna tells her she has decided to become an artist, Ms. Reisz tells her she needs
“a courageous soul. The soul that dares and defies”.

CH.22-23: Edna’s husband goes to visit Doctor Mandelet to talk about his wife. It is
interesting how Mr. Pontellier’s point of view represents or symbolizes society’s
discomfort and rejection in relation to a change of roles of women as dutiful wives and
mothers. Society’s rejection at Edna’s awakening is represented in the book through the
eyes of her husband. His decision to visit the doctor also represents how the society of
that time considered women’s attempts to stand out of their assigned roles as signs of
madness. However, it is interesting to see how Chopin decides to portray the doctor as
a sensitive man who is able to see beyond the surface, understanding Edna’s awakening
in relation to sexual and spiritual freedom—an opposite perception to her husband’s. In
this paragraph, specifically in page 23, pay attention to the emphasis on gaze and
speech: “waking up in the sun” involves the act of opening one’s eyes to the light.
21
CH.26-27: In these two chapters Edna matures her important decision of moving to live
alone at a small house (pigeon house) she has seen for rent. She has an income from
an inheritance, so she will be economically independent. Think about the reaction this
decision would have caused at the end of the nineteenth-century conservative society of
New Orleans.

 First of all, she tells Ms. Reisz of this decision. Think about the reasons why the
narrator chooses to let us know about this important event in the plot through the
conversation that Edna and the pianist have in this chapter.

 Ms. Reisz makes Edna confess her love for Robert. Then, Ms. Reisz understands
this is a big step outside society’s approval and compares Edna to a bird.
Comparisons with birds are recurrent as a symbol of freedom and idealism in the
book. She says: “The bird that would soar above the level plain of tradition and
prejudice must have strong wings. It is a sad spectacle to see the weaklings
bruised, exhausted, fluttering back to earth”. Remember this sentence to relate it
to another bird symbol in the last chapter.

CH. 30: This is an important chapter since it represents Edna’s “Ritual dinner” of
emancipation. Also, it is her 29th birthday, a symbolic age for literary heroines in search
of independence. Pay attention to the gathering at the table, the symbols of royalty and
ceremony we find in the luxurious ornaments. It is a special moment in the book that can
be compared with others such as the baptism and ritual sleep at Cheniere Caminada, or
the night swim in chapter 10. The author seems to mark Edna’s awakening process and
steps through symbolic rituals full of sensual elements. This is the ritual of her maturity
as an independent woman.

CH.31-33: During these chapters Edna seems to grow in independence, inner strength
and self-assertion, which the narrator describes as follows: “She began to look with her
own eyes; to see and to apprehend the deeper undercurrents of life” (p.151). The
stronger she feels inside, the more rejection she finds from society, through the figures
of her husband and Adele who considers her irresponsible and childish.

 In chapter 32 she visits her children and this is an important event; Edna seems
to get in touch with her maternal side again but the weight of the taste of her
freedom is heavier.

 In chapter 33 Robert appears and they meet at Ms. Reisz’s. They get together at
Edna’s new place and they declare their love to each other.

CH.36: This chapter is the climax of Edna and Robert’s love story. They get together and
Robert tells her about the reason for his leaving at Grand Isle: he was in love with her
but she was a married woman and she belonged to her husband. Edna expresses her
new self to him by asserting that she does not belong to her husband anymore. This is
an important and revolutionary assertion from a woman at that time: “I am no longer one
of Mr. Pontellier’s possessions to dispose of or not. I give myself where I choose.” This
idea is in fact too ahead of her time even for Robert (it also includes sexual freedom) who
does not seem to understand and be able to assimilate Edna’s new idea of
independence. This climax is broken by the news of Adele’s difficult childbirth and Edna
leaves Robert to go to assist her friend.
22
CH.37: Pay attention to the reason why the author precisely chooses this event (Adele’s
childbirth) as a breaking point for Edna and Robert’s story. This is, in fact, the event that
separates them. Edna parts from him to see her friend, but when she is back, he is not
there and will never return. This event is a kind of regression in the plot towards the reality
of women at the time (family roles and maternity). Even Adele tells Edna at the end of
the chapter to “think of the children”, to hang on her responsibility as mother and wife.
Adele’s childbirth breaks the atmosphere of the romance and idealization lived through
the previous chapter.

CH. 39: This is the final chapter and it is set again at Grand Isle. Edna returns to the
place where she started her process of awakening. The narrative voice lets us know her
thoughts and how she reaches the conclusion that she does not want to live for her
children, but that she now expects something else from life (remember her conversation
with Adele about “never giving up herself for her children”).

 Through a poetic language, the narrative voice describes the sensuality that
springs from the sea, the sea that represented freedom and that stood as an
important symbol of awakening in the first part of the book (in fact, the exact words
are repeated from chapter 6: “the voice of the sea is seductive, never ceasing,
whispering, clamoring …”).

 We find the symbol of a bird with a broken wing: remember what Ms. Reisz tells
her in chapter 27, using the image of the bird to fight prejudice. This falling bird
also represents Edna’s failing at facing society’s disapproval (and Robert’s
disapproval).

 She gets naked in front of the sea: this is a symbolic image of true self and body
sensuality, a female self-rid of society’s pressures and expectations, standing in
communion with the immensity and freedom of the sea: “she felt like some new-
born creature, opening its eyes in a familiar world that it had never known.”

 Edna’s fear of the water is balanced through the image she recollects of her
childhood’s meadow at Mississippi, an image of freedom and rebellion against
society’s norms (remember the conversation with Adele in chapter 7).

 The thinks of her husband and children: “they were part of her life. But they need
not have thought that they could possess her, body and soul”, a goodbye to her
love, Robert and a recollection of her family and her belief in romance (symbolized
by the bees and the cavalry officer) are the last elements we know of Edna naked
at the sea.

Pay attention to the symbolism of the whole passage, the use of circular images that
takes us back to different important moments in the story, and the ambiguity of the end:
is she committing suicide? Is this a tragic or a happy and liberatory death? Does she
actually die? Do we see her drowning? What’s the authorial intention by portraying this
end in which we do not see Edna dying?

23
3. Literary Criticism

Once we have made a close reading of the novel, we will look for some interpretative
tools to continue our analysis. In this case, we are going to study Feminist criticism,
which will help us to uncover some of the main themes of the novel.

3.1. READ chapter 6 of Barry’s Beginning Theory, “Feminist

criticism”. Then, do the exercises we suggest below.

 Study activities

1. Citing Toril Moi, Barry refers to the “crucial set of distinctions” (117, 124) around
which much of Second Wave feminism revolves. What are they? Use your own
words.

2. On page 117 (124, 4th ed.), paragraph 3 (“Thus, in feminist criticism…”), Barry
notes three changes or adjustments that feminism underwent in the 1980s.
Using your own words, say what they were.

3. Now re-read “What feminist critics do” (Barry, pp. 128, 135 (4th ed.). Paraphrase
his arguments, i.e. re-write Barry’s points (some of them are very short!) with
your own words.

Example: “Feminist critics challenge and re-write the canon, seeking to rediscover
women-authored texts.”

 Answers.

1. Toril Moi distinguishes between feminist (“a political position”), female (“a matter of
biology”) and feminine (“a set of culturally defined characteristics”).

2. One, feminist criticism became more wide-ranging and began to seek inspiration
from the conclusions and approaches of other schools of criticism; two, feminist
criticism turned away from challenging the male outlook to examining instead the
female version of reality and recovering vanished or silenced accounts of women’s
experience; three, focus changed to building a body of women’s writing by revising
the history of the novel and poetry to incorporate neglected women authors.

What feminist critics do:

1. Challenge and re-write the canon, seeking to rediscover women-authored texts.

2. Re-assess women’s lives.
3. Look at how women are represented by male and female authors.
4. Question constructions of women as ‘Other’, as ‘lack’, as being automatically linked
to ‘nature’.

24
 5. Challenge hierarchies in writing and real life, seeking to dismantle them, view reading
as political practice and expose (= uncover, make manifest) patriarchy.
6. Acknowledge that language ‘constructs’ social reality, making it seem natural or
innate.
7. Ask whether men and women are essentially (because biologically) different, or
whether difference is one more social construct.
8. Raise the possibility of écriture feminine (a feminine practice of writing) and of
whether men can practice écriture feminine too.
9. Go back to psychoanalysis to continue exploring male and female identity.
10. Look again at Barthes’ ‘the death of the author’, a notion which favours ‘subject
positions’ constructed through words; ask whether experiential subjectivity (i.e.
sexuality, ethnicity) should be foregrounded instead.

3.2. Critical authors

SANDRA M. GILBERT (b. 1936) and SUSAN GUBAR (b. 1944).

The Madwoman in the Attic (1979), Sandra Gilbert and Susan

Gubar's critical study of British and American nineteenth-
century women's literature, attempts to define a "distinctively
female literary tradition." The authors also try to unearth
significant women's literature and rescue previously
disregarded women's history. Gilbert and Gubar's analysis of
authors such as Jane Austen, Emily and Charlotte Brontë,
George Eliot, Mary Shelley, and Emily Dickinson signals a
shift in literary studies from examining how male authors
write female characters toward a definition of female
authorship, or how women authors construct female
characters. Gilbert and Gubar take into account the cultural
and political climate in which those authors wrote as well as
the texts that those authors read. With those issues in mind,
Gilbert and Gubar explore "images of enclosure and escape,
fantasies in which maddened doubles function as asocial
surrogates for docile selves, [and] obsessive depictions of
diseases like anorexia, agoraphobia, and claustrophobia"
(Gilbert and Gubar 1979, p. XI). In some ways, Gilbert and Gubar contend, the trapped position of
female authors within patriarchal literary constructs manifests itself in the literal and metaphorical
enclosures about which many of them wrote.
The title of the book refers to the character Bertha Rochester in Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre
(1847), who not only suffers from madness but also serves as a double for the character of Jane.
Gilbert and Gubar contend that Jane's central confrontation of the text is not with Mr. Rochester but
with Bertha and her manifestation of Jane's emotions. In Jane's coming-of-age journey, she must face
oppression, starvation, madness, and coldness at each of the estates in which she lives and works. At
Thornfield, Jane meets her "dark double" Bertha, who acts out Jane's feelings of "rebellion and rage."
Bertha is the only true "madwoman in the attic" in Gilbert and Gubar's critical study.
Moreover, the authors explore the figure of the madwoman as a double in writings by Mary
Elizabeth Coleridge and George Eliot, for example, to demonstrate how nineteenth-century women
writers and poets employed mirrors to create the madwoman. These madwomen emerge "over and
over again from the mirrors women writers hold up both to their own natures and to their own visions
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 of nature," and they appear "from a silence in which neither [they] nor [their] author[s] can continue
to acquiesce" (Gilbert and Gubar 1979, p. 77). The figure of the mirrored madwoman signifies a
strategy authors and poets such as Mary Shelley and Emily Dickinson utilized to represent themselves
as split or, more specifically, deploying a "female schizophrenia of authorship." This approach also
prefigures authors such as Virginia Woolf, Doris Lessing, and Sylvia Plath, who divide and project
themselves onto particular characters.
This groundbreaking book on women's literature drew on work by historians such as Gerda Lerner,
Alice Rossi, Ann Douglas, and Martha Vicinus as well as literary-cultural studies conducted by Ellen
Moers (Literary Women) and Elaine Showalter (A Literature of Their Own). Gilbert and Gubar's study
elicited a range of responses from feminist, literary, and historical critics, who have worked to expand
the field of women's literary studies. Source: encyclopedia.com

READ the following excerpt by Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar, “Infection in the
sentence: The woman writer and the anxiety of authorship” in The Madwoman in
the Attic. The woman writer and the 19th century literary imagination.

What does it mean to be a woman writer in a culture whose fundamental definitions of literary
authority are […] *patriarchal? If the vexed and vexing polarities of angel and monster, sweet dumb
Snow White and fierce mad Queen, are major images literary tradition offers women, how does such
*imagery influence the ways in which women attempt the pen? If the Queen’s looking glass speaks
with the King’s voice, how do its perpetual kingly admonitions affect the Queen’s own voice? Or
does she “talk back” to him in her own vocabulary, her own timbre, insisting on her viewpoint? We
believe these are basic questions feminist literary criticism – both theoretical and practical – must
answer […].
That writers assimilate and then consciously or unconsciously affirm or deny the achievements of
their predecessors is, of course, a central fact of literary history […]. Increasingly, […] critics study
the ways in which, as J. Hillis Miller has put it, a literary text “is inhabited…by a long chain of
parasitical presences, echoes, *allusions, guests, ghosts of previous texts”.
[T]he first and foremost student of such literary psychohistory has been Harold Bloom. Applying
Freud […], Bloom has postulated that the dynamics of literary history arise from the artist’s “anxiety
of influence,” his fear that he is not his own creator and that the works of his predecessors, existing
before and beyond him, assume essential priority over his own writings. […] Bloom’s paradigm of
the sequential relationship between literary artists is the relationship of father and son [and] a “strong
poet” must engage in heroic warfare with his “precursor,” for, involved as he is in a literary Oedipal
struggle, a man can only become a poet by somehow invalidating his poetic father.
[I]f we acquiesce in the patriarchal Bloomian model, we can be sure that the female poet does not
experience the “anxiety of influence” in the same way that her male counterpart would, for the
simple reason that she must confront precursors who are almost exclusively male, and therefore
significantly different from her. Not only do these precursors incarnate patriarchal authority […],
they attempt to enclose her in definitions of her person and her potential which, by reducing her to
extreme stereotypes (angel, monster) drastically conflict with her own sense of her self – that is, of
her subjectivity, her autonomy, her creativity. On the one hand, therefore, the woman writer’s male
precursors symbolize authority; on the other hand, despite their authority, they fail to define the
ways in which she experiences her own identity as a writer. More, the masculine authority with
which they construct their literary *personae, as well as the fierce power struggles in which they
engage in their efforts of self-creation, seem to the woman writer directly to contradict the terms of
her own gender definition. Thus the “anxiety of influence” that a male poet experiences is felt by a
female poet as an even more primary “anxiety of authorship” – a radical fear that she cannot create,
that because she can never become “precursor” the act of writing will isolate or destroy her.
SOURCE: The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism (2001) 2023-2035.

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  Study activites.

1. Look up and give definitions of the words marked with an * (asterisk).

2. Give brief definitions or equivalent terms for the following terms and expressions. Take
into account their context within the passage. Remember to consult a good monolingual
English dictionary if necessary:
• attempt the pen (par. 1)
• kingly admonitions (par. 1)
• paradigm (par. 3)
• male counterpart (par. 4)
• stereotypes (par. 4)
3. Gilbert and Gubar discuss Harold Bloom’s “anxiety of influence” (paragraph 3).
Summarise paragraph 3 which gives us an explanation of this term (maximum 5 lines).
4. The adjective Oedipal (par. 3) comes from the Greek mythological character, Oedipus,
the king of Thebes who married his mother and killed his father. Why do you think Gilbert
and Gubar describe the literary conflict between a male author and his precursors as an
Oedipal struggle?
5. Challenging Bloom’s Oedipal model, Gilbert and Gubar create their own term –
“anxiety of authorship”. Re-read paragraph 4 from: “Not only do these precursors…” to
the end and paraphrase their arguments (maximum 6 lines).
6. Summarise the text (no more than 20 lines), taking into account your answers to the
above questions.

 Answers
Unless otherwise indicated, all definitions are taken from Cuddon, The Penguin
Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory (1977, 1999).

1. Definitions:

*patriarchal: adjective which describes a system of male authority which oppresses

women through its social, political and economic institutions (Maggie Hum, The
Dictionary of Feminist Theory. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2003).
*imagery: the terms image and imagery have many connotations and meanings.
Imagery as a general term covers the use of language to represent objects, actions,
feelings, thoughts, ideas, states of mind and any sensory or extra-sensory experience.
Image does not necessarily mean ‘a mental picture’.
*allusion: usually an implicit reference, perhaps to another work of literature or art, to a
person or an event. It is often a kind of appeal to a reader to share some experience with
the writer.
*personae: plural of persona [a Latin loanword]. In literary and critical jargon, persona
has come to denote the ‘person’ (the ‘I’ of an ‘alter ego’) who speaks in a poem or novel
or other form of literature.
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2. Brief definitions:
• attempt the pen: try to write
• kingly admonitions: stern advice uttered by a male monarch
• paradigm: model, example
• male counterpart: male equivalent or complement
• stereotypes: standarised, simplified and fixed conceptions.

3. For Bloom, “anxiety of influence” refers to the (male) writer’s fear that his works are
fatally overshadowed –even ‘owned’ in some way– by those of previous (male) authors.
The author can only counter (oponerse a) the paternal influence of (male) literary
ancestors by aggressively challenging and nullifying them, much as Oedipus ‘nullified’
his father.

4.The male author must “kill his father” in order to survive and become his own person.
Bloom’s model is inspired by Freud’s Oedipus complex. This is what Barry says: “the
male infant conceives the desire to eliminate the father and become the sexual partner
of the mother. Many forms of inter-generational conflict are seen by Freudians as having
Oedipal overtones, such as professional rivalries”. Barry also notes the masculinised
prejudice of the Oedipus complex: “As the very idea of the Oedipal complex would
suggest, Freudian theory is often deeply masculinist in bias” (93). Bloomian theory, too,
one might add.

5. In response to the masculinized version of literary rivalry represented by Bloom’s

“anxiety of influence”, Gilbert and Gubar propose a feminized “anxiety of authorship”
which can be summarised thus:
Male literary ancestors are associated with the patriarchal attempt to define the
woman author, reducing her subjectivity to stereotypes (angel, monster) and her
potential to define herself. The male power conflict with a literary precursor does not
reflect the female writer’s sense of her own gender (=género). Her inability to see
herself as a (hostile, aggressive, i.e. masculine) precursor, or other writers as models
or counter-models, therefore, leads to a fear that she cannot write, that writing will
lead to her isolation or annihilation.

IMPORTANT NOTE:
The information contained in these keys to the study activities is not supposed to
be memorised. You are supposed to develop your capacity to integrate this
information into your reading and understanding of the texts and use it in a flexible
way to answer the PEC or exam questions using your own writing skills instead of
word-for-word memorisation. These keys do not constitute a final reading or an
exhaustive commentary of the text. You will of course find further nuances and
possibilities in the text and you are expected to produce your own ideas when
discussing texts as long as they are cogently expressed and based on the text
itself and a cogent critical reading.

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4. QUIZ
 ANSWER the Quiz located in the Virtual Course (Work Plan/Unit 2). The Quiz is
an exercise for you to check if you have assimilated the contents of the unit.

5. REFERENCES

Barry, Peter. Beginning Theory. An Introduction to literary and cultural theory.

Bennet, Andrew and Royle, Nicholas. The thing called literature: reading, thinking,
writing. Routledge. 2015.
Dyer, Joyce. Symbolism and Imagery in The Awakening. Bernard Koloski ed.
Approaches to teaching Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, MLA, 1988.
Gilbert, Sandra and Susan Gubar. The Norton Anthology of Literature by Women.
Norton and Company. Norton and Company, 1985.
Gilbert, Sandra M. “Introduction: The Second Coming of Aphrodite”, in Kate
Chopin The Awakening, Penguin Classics, 1986.
Joslin, Katherin. “Finding the Self at Home”. In Kate Chopin Reconsidered: Beyond
the Bayou, eds. Lynda S. Boren and Sara De Saussure Davis. Louisiana UP, 1992.
Klarer, Mario. An introduction to Literary Studies. 3rd edition. Routledge. 2013.
Mays, Kelly J. The Norton Introduction to Literature. Shorter 12th edition. Norton.
2017.
Papke, Mary. Verging on the Abyss. The Social Fiction of Kate Chopin and Edith
Wharton, Greenwood P, 1990.
Piñero Gil, Eulalia. Introducción. Kate Chopin. El Despertar. Cátedra, 2012.
Showalter, Elaine. “The Awakening: Tradition and the American Female Talent” in
Sister’s Choice: Tradition and Change in American Women’s Writing. Clarendon
Press, 1991.
Showalter, Elaine. A Jury of Her Peers. American Women Writers. Virago 2009.
Sullivan, Ruth and S. Smith. “Narrative Stance in Kate Chopin’s The Awakening”.
Critical Essays on Kate Chopin. Ed. Alice Petry. GK Hall & Co., 1996.

6. FURTHER RESOURCES

KateChopin.org An extraordinary website with countless resources for studying the work
of Kate Chopin.

American Literature.com Kate Chopin.

Feminist Criticism (1960s-present)

Feminism and Feminist Literary Theory. Videoclass.

The Classical Feminists Tradition by Paul fry. Yale University. Videoclass.

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