logo

59 pages 1 hour read

Kate Chopin

The Awakening

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1899

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Chapters 36-39Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 36 Summary

One day, Edna goes to her favorite little garden cafe, located in the suburbs of the city. As she eats her dinner and reads a book, Robert walks in. They both feel uneasy but Robert agrees to join Edna for dinner. Although Edna had decided to be reserved around Robert, the sight of him makes her speak honestly about how she feels. She blames him for being self-centered and not caring about her feelings and emotions. Edna tells Robert that she is now used to expressing herself freely, no matter how “unwomanly” (277) this may seem to others. Robert again calls her cruel and accuses her of wishing him “to bare a wound for the pleasure of looking at it, without the intention or power of healing it” (277). Not wanting to confront his anger, Edna changes the topic promptly and returns to pleasantries.

After the dinner, they both go to the little house. After washing up, Edna finds Robert sitting in a chair, and leans over to kiss him. He kisses her back then embraces her. He admits that he decided to go to Mexico in order to forget about her. Instead of forgetting her, however, he had dreamed that one day they would get married, that Léonce would “set her free” (281). Edna responds with assuring him that she is no longer “one of Mr. Pontellier’s possessions to dispose of or not” (282) and that she will give herself to whomever she pleases. Robert is dismayed by this revelation.

Edna’s servant interrupts their conversation with an announcement that Adèle is in labor and asks for Edna. Before leaving, Edna assures Robert that she loves only him and that soon they will be “everything for each other” (283). Overwhelmed with passionate longing, he pleads Edna to stay. She only tells him to wait until she returns.

Chapter 37 Summary

When Edna arrives at Adèle’s house, Edna finds her exhausted and irritated, because Doctor Mandelet is late. As she waits, the memories of her giving birth come flooding back, yet they seem so far away from her current life, so “unreal and only half remembered” (288). She wants to leave but stays by Adèle’s side. As she watched “the scene torture” (288) she was overwhelmed with “an inward agony, with a flaming, outspoken revolt against the ways of Nature” (299). When everything is over, Edna leans over Adèle to kiss her and to say good-bye, and Adèle whispers, “Think of the children, Edna. Oh think of the children! Remember them!” (289).

Chapter 38 Summary

Doctor Mandelet, after he is done taking care of Adèle, accompanies Edna as she returns to her house. He says that it was cruel of Adèle to have Edna stay with her during childbirth, since she knew that Edna was quite vulnerable to such sights. He asks Edna when Léonce will return and if she will go abroad with him. Edna replies that he will be back in early March but she will stay here because from now on she will do as she pleases. She adds that only children can force her to do something she is not willing to do. Despite the incoherency of Edna’s speech, the doctor understands what prompts her to think so. He remarks that “youth is given up to illusions” (291) about the nature of motherhood as a way of securing mothers for the propagation of children, without taking into consideration any “moral consequences” (291) that it involves. Finally, Doctor Mandelet tells Edna that he is worried about her and that he is ready to help her if she ever wants to confide in him. Edna responds that her only wish is to be independent but in order to have her way she must “trample upon the lives, the hearts, the prejudices of others” (292), which makes her situation difficult. The doctor assures Edna that he is not blaming her for anything, and that she should come to talk to him. He then adds that she should not blame herself, “whatever comes” (293).

Having reached the house, Edna sits on the porch and thinks about Adèle’s words. Finally, she decides that she will think of her children the following day, but not today, when she desperately wants to see Robert. When she comes into the house, she finds that Robert has left; he’s left a note that reads, “I love you. Good-by—because I love you” (294). Edna stretches out on the sofa and, without uttering a sound, lies there awake all night.

Chapter 39 Summary

As Victor mends a porch of one of the galleries on Grand Isle, he tells Mariequita about Edna’s dinner party. They are surprised to see that Edna herself is approaching them. She explains that she needed rest and that’s why she decided to come to the island alone. Edna asks them to have lunch with her and then leaves them to go for a swim. Victor and Mariequita warn her that the water is still too cold, but Edna decides to go anyway. As she is walking to the beach, she is not preoccupied with thinking about anything in particular. She had done all the thinking the night after Robert had left. That night, she realized that even Robert, the only one she wanted to see near her, would disappear from her thoughts. She had also realized that’s she doesn’t feel anything toward her husband. The only people she was considerate of were her children, but even children “appeared before her like antagonists who had overcome her, who had overpowered and sought to drag her into the soul’s slavery for the rest of her days” (300).

As Edna walks to the beach, she does not think of any of these things. She sees a bird with a broken wing who struggles to fly and finally crashes down. She puts on her old bathing suit, which she found exactly where she had left it last summer. When she reaches the water, she notices that there is no one in sight, and takes off her bathing suit. For the first time in her life, Edna stands “naked in the open air, at the mercy of the sun, the breeze that beat upon her, and the waves that invited her” (301). She feels like “some new-born creature, opening its eyes in a familiar world that it had never known” (301). As Edna swims out into the cold water, she does not look back to the shore, and thinks only of her children, of Robert, and of Mademoiselle Reisz’s words: “The artist must possess the courageous soul that dares and defies” (302). She thinks of the note Robert left for her and comes to terms with the fact that he never truly understood her and never would. She acknowledges that if she had talked to Doctor Mandelet, perhaps he would have understood her feelings, but now it is too late to talk to him. She grows more and more tired, but the shore is far behind her. Her mind is blank except for the memories of her childhood, and the sea swallows her.

Chapters 36-39 Analysis

While Robert was in Mexico, Edna had undergone a series of transformative experiences and realized that she does not want to be anyone’s possession. Robert, however, continues to understand the relations between a man and a woman as those between a possessor and a possession This is manifest when he admits that he had fantasized about Edna becoming his wife, and had developed wild dreams of Léonce setting her free. It becomes clear that he does not see their relationship outside of social convention, and that he considers the problem of ownership and the transfer of ownership as the main obstacle to being with Edna. This brings to the fore the striking difference that Edna and Robert have in regard to their relationship: while for Edna her relationship with Robert is a means to liberate herself from convention, Robert does not want to break long-established norms and sees their relationship only through the lens of a traditional male-female dynamic. When this becomes clear to Edna, it marks the final stage of her awakening.

Robert is shocked with Edna’s boldness when she tells him, “I am no longer one of Mr. Pontellier’s possessions to dispose of or not. I give myself where I chose. If he were to say, ‘Here Robert, take her and be happy; she is yours,’ I should laugh at both of you” (282). Edna’s words make Robert realize not only her disregard for social convention, but also her disregard for him and his needs. Although he loves Edna, he does not want to be a way she pursues independence.

Nevertheless, Robert feels great passion for Edna and instead of staying away from her, he gives in to his sexual desires. The narrator describes that Edna’s “seductive voice, together with his great love for her, had enthralled his senses, had deprived him of every impulse but the longing to hold her and keep her” (284). Therefore, even though their relationship is doomed, he begs her to stay with him. In his passion, Robert becomes somewhat similar to Edna: he feels torn between his love and his moral obligations. Yet, unlike Edna, his passion is not strong enough to make him choose love instead of loyalty. When even Robert, who is filled with sincere love, refuses to violate long-established norms, Edna realizes how lonely she is in struggling to break free from social restraints.

Although Edna no longer feels dependent upon Léonce or Robert, her final thoughts are filled with those who depend upon her: her children. Raoul and Etienne make her feel “overpowered” (300), because she feels that they rely upon her for their reputation and social acceptance. Her suicide is an implementation of her words that for the sake of her children she would sacrifice her life but not herself. If she returns to Léonce, she will betray her essence and her newfound sense of self. By committing suicide, she avoids self-betrayal and preserves her children’s reputations. Edna has even arranged everything to appear as if her suicide were a mere accident: she made plans with Victor for lunch and thus led him to believe that she will be returning after her swim.

The book does not specify whether Edna’s suicide is meant to be her liberation or her surrender. On the one hand, instead of leaving her family and living alone, supporting herself as an artist, and serving as an extraordinary example to her sons, Edna decides to kill herself to avoid the risk of ruining her sons’ reputations. This can be seen as an act of ultimate submission to the power of social convention. On the other hand, Edna does not want to pursue her own independence at the cost of her children’s happiness, so her suicide is a generous action and the only way she can liberate herself from social constraint without causing pain to her sons. The suicide also serves as a manifestation of willfulness: since she refuses to sacrifice herself, she has enough courage to sacrifice her life for the sake of maintaining her independence.

blurred text
blurred text
blurred text
blurred text