Q: Explain the title. What is Edna awakening from or to?
The Awakening is speaking to Edna’s slow realization to her lifetime of oppression. While not as oppressed as many other characters in the novel, namely the unnamed house workers supporting the wealthy characters, Edna has definitely experienced her own sort of oppression that the experiences of the vacation awake her to realizing. I thought it started when she was sitting in the shade with Adele and going over the romantic interests she previously had. However, her close friendship and undercover flirtations with Robert before he leaves for Mexico are perhaps what gets the ball rolling in Edna’s mind to make her realize how complacent she’s become within her own life. Once he leaves, Edna realizes how Robert made her feel like how she did with her previous crushes in the past, something that gives her a new lease on life.
“For the first time she recognized anew the symptoms of infatuation which she felt incipiently as a child, as a girl in her earliest teens, and later as a young woman.” (Chopin)
Once she returns to New Orleans, Edna begins to exercise some of these new ideas she has for herself, specifically with her renewing her artistic practices and getting praise from Adele for doing so. Robert was almost her awakening, making her feel something besides malaise and make her realize that her life is worth living for herself. She does get into argument with Léonce, but instead of feeling upset by it, she instead shrugs it off.
“…Edna went up to her atelier—a bright room at the top of the home. She was working with great energy and interest, without accomplishing anything, however, which satisfied her even in the smallest degree.” (Chopin)
Edna starts to leave the house as well, visiting her friends and overall gaining independence from Léonce and her children, which I think is where she truly becomes ‘awakened’. She becomes aware of her own potential and the world outside of her own home, which was waiting to hear from her.
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