Essay: The Awakening: Edna Pontellier

Edna Pontellier is a complex character due to her expected roles, of mother and wife, differing from her true desires, thoughts, and actions that are ill-suited to the mold society made for her. Edna’s independent, rebellious, and impulsive nature lead her to awakenings throughout the novel where she eventually discovers the most authentic version of herself.
Edna Pontellier’s awakenings begin in her summer vacation spot at Grand Isle, which appears to be a utopia at first glance with some of the wealthiest Creole families staying oceanside, but ironically, it is here that Edna discovers her unhappiness. Edna realizes how dissatisfied she is with her marriage despite Leonce Pontellier being “the best husband in the world”, according to the Creole women. Edna would often try to conform into the wife role by agreeing with the women and admitting “that she knew of none better”. However, there was an imbalance in the Pontellier marriage due to Leonce wishing for Edna to be the exemplary New Orleans woman that would compliment his wealthy businessman appearance, but Edna found that life distasteful to the free-spirited woman she wished to be. Leonce, “thought it was very discouraging that his wife, who was the sole object of his existence, evinced so little interest in things which concerned him and valued so little his conversation.” Mr. Pontellier saw his wife as an “object” and wanted everything done on his terms. Eventually, Edna’s independent psyche would catch up to their relationship and her true feelings would be revealed when she begins to rebel against her husband and embark her self-discovering journey. As Edna develops through the story and starts to care less of how people view her, she begins to only see Leonce as a block in her independence. This feeling ultimately causes her to move out of their house in New Orleans and stay in her own “pigeon house” abandoning both her wife and mother responsibilities, which she never completely fulfilled in the first place. Edna was described as a mother who “was fond of her children in an uneven, impulsive way. She would sometimes gather them passionately to her heart; she would sometimes forget them.” Edna’s sons play a minimum role in her life as she rejected the idealized picture of motherhood that other women, such as Madame Ratignolle, embodied. Edna was not naturally a mother nor a wife and struggled to fit into the box of either titles appointed to her by society, which ultimately caused her unhappiness when attempting to be those things.
During Edna’s realization of how discontent she was with her “ideal” family life for a woman of the 1890’s, she attempts relationships with two other men in the novel, both of which who never fully satisfy her. Robert Lebrun, who Edna had spent time with on her vacation in Grand Isle and believed she was truly in love with, and Alcee Arobin, who was charming enough for any woman to lust over. Through these men, Edna seeked a genuine relationship, something she lacked with her husband who she only married because she thought it was something she Robert awoke Edna with his flirtatiousness that brought the excitement to her life that she had been missing and desiring.