The Awakening

The loss of family continues in the feminist novel “The Awakening”. The Awakening is an interesting type of revelation story because, instead of having a prophet figure, it is instead told from the point of view of the prophet realizing the message them self. The story starts with Edna Pontellier, who is the prophet figure who realizes the message. The story evolves and we are faced with a problem, she is stuck in a life she does not belong in: “Mrs. Pontellier, though she had married a Creole, was not thoroughly at home in the society of Creoles.” Edna is in a life where she does not fit in and is not happy. She realizes this herself, and ends up reconnecting the dots of her life. She knows she loves to paint, so she takes painting more seriously, things that make her happy she does more of, and this little taste offers her a redeemed world where she can do what she wants and live a happy life. This of course is not met without opposition. Her message that she realizes causes her to act strangely for people in her situation, and that causes people (mainly her husband) to wonder what is wrong with her: “’Yes, yes; she seems quite well,” said Mr. Pontellier, leaning forward and whirling his stick between his two hands; “but she doesn’t act well. She’s odd, she’s not herself. I can’t make her out, and I thought perhaps you’d help me.”’ This opposition begins to overwhelm our prophet figure to the point where she cannot take it anymore, and commits suicide for the sake of her message, which is simply her new way of life.

Mrs. Pontellier’s family suffers from her realization of this message, this new way of life. First off, her husband was cheated on, because at the time her message involved loving a man who is not her husband. Secondly and most of all, Mrs. Pontellier never was a mother woman, and would not give up her beliefs for her family: “She understood now clearly what she had meant long ago when she said to Adèle Ratignolle that she would give up the unessential, but she would never sacrifice herself for her children”. She left her loving family motherless and widowed for the sake of her new way of life. Her family ended up paying the ultimate price of the opposition to her message (which was of course her new way of life.) While this family sacrifice is different than the sacrifice that occured in Enemy of the People, it is very related to the Jesus sacrifice endured by his family. Mrs. Pontellier also disregarded her family in a similar way that Jesus disregarded his family. Jesus put his message above his family, as did Mrs. Pontellier, the difference being that Jesus's message was towards the people, while Mrs. Pontellier's message involved only herself.