The Awakening: While Reading - Chapters 11-19
The materials on this page are designed to support your students as they read Kate Chopin's novel, The Awakening. The materials include generic advice to your students as they read the novel and, for each chapter (11-19), there are questions and prompts, supporting your students’ understanding, and encouraging them to take detailed, meaningful notes, while thinking critically about the work.
Studying the Novel: General Advice
Studying the Novel: Chapter Guidance
Chapters 11-14
- Edna is lying in the hammock when Leonce returns to the cottage. Leonce orders Edna to come inside, rather like a parent speaking to a child. Edna refuses. Leonce describes Edna’s behaviour as “folly”. It is a word he will repeat. Read this section again. Using concepts such as ‘power’ and ‘authority’, ‘obedience’ and ‘resistance’ as guidance, describe what happens. What, in your view, motivates Edna and Leonce?
- In reading the novel, it is helpful to recognize who is an ‘outsider’ and who is an ‘insider’. The tension between insider and outsider is not an uncommon focus for Paper 2 questions and prompts! Edna, clearly, is an outsider who struggles to understand the, mainly unspoken, culturally transmitted moral codes of Creole society (that, through marriage to Leonce, she has become part of). In addition to Edna, there are other outsiders in the novel. And, if there are benefits of an outsider’s perspective, it includes the ability to see other cultures with ‘fresh eyes’. The Spanish girl, Mariequita, is an outsider. What does she see and understand in these chapters? What can be said about Edna’s understanding of herself in these chapters? As chapter 14 concludes, Robert leaves Edna and walks on his own towards the ocean. What does he understand?
- In these chapters, there is much that can be read symbolically. It is possible, in other words, to understand the events of (at least) these chapters in more than a literal way. Try to find examples and make a note of their significance. You could, for example, consider the physical journey from Grand Isle to Grande Terre; the church, the church service and its effect on Edna; Edna’s stay at Madame Antoine – notice Edna’s undressing, her sense of the passing of time, and how famished she is when she awakens; the imagery of wriggling snakes and lizards writhing in the hot sun is clearly also suggestive.
- Madame Ratignolle is a foil to Edna’s character; that is, in her difference to Edna, she reveals something particular about Edna. Describe, in your own words, how Edna behaves when returning to her cottage. Note that Madame Ratignolle is suffering from “heat and oppression” which was exactly what drove Edna from the church earlier. What explains Madame Ratignolle’s physical symptoms and, in contrast to Edna, what is Madame Ratignolle’s ‘solution’ to her exhaustion?
Chapters 15-16
- This section of the novel opens with a dinner party at which Edna receives the news that Robert is leaving for Mexico that same evening. This surprises Edna as she has spent the day with Robert who has not mentioned his upcoming trip. How is rising tension shown in this scene?
- In Edna’s view, Robert appears as if he is “some gentleman on the stage”. Possibly, this is ironic. Many of the characters are playing social roles; they are doing what the Canadian sociologist, Erving Goffman once called ‘front-stage behaviour’ (in contrast to ‘backstage behaviour’, where one can be a more authentic version of oneself). As an example of this, when Edna leaves the dinner early, Madame Ratignolle, concerned with self-presentation and appearance, goes to tell Edna that her absence “doesn’t look friendly”. Madame Ratignolle understands the accepted codes of her community. Edna, however, is a Kentucky Presbyterian who is out of place among the Catholic Creole community she has married into. What do you notice in Edna’s behaviour that suggests she is not aware of the ‘rules of the stage’?
- An important conversation happens in these chapters where Edna says to Madame Ratignolle that “(I) would give my life for my children; but I wouldn’t give myself”. Why does this shock Adele, and what does it reveal about Edna?
- Towards the end of this section of the novel, Edna confers with Mademoiselle Reisz. What do you learn about the character of Mademoiselle Reisz?
Chapters 17-19
- The novel shifts setting in these chapters. Summer has come to an end, and Edna and Leonce have returned to their home on Esplanade Street in New Orleans. Edna, however, has changed. What evidence can you find for this change? How does Edna begin to neglect her domestic obligations?
- Edna feels trapped and stifled in the house on Esplanade Street. How is her sense of entrapment shown?
- Edna, clearly, is unsatisfied in her marriage to Leonce. This is shown most obviously when she attempts to crush her wedding ring. This attempt, however, is unsuccessful. What is suggested by this do you think?
- Edna’s inner turmoil increases throughout these chapters. How is this shown?
- Leonce is concerned that Edna is becoming “unbalanced mentally”. That is, there is a suggestion that Edna is going mad. Is she? If you think she may be going mad, to what extent is this a reasonable response to her situation?