Blog 10 The Awakening

The Awakening is a book that I could see why the audience in that time would see it as shocking. Although now it wouldn’t be a huge surprise for a woman to not be much of a mother as well as someone that wants a divorce from her husband. But in those times that was not normal. Edna had been awakened by finding someone that she actually loved and had never felt that way before. She also friended Reisz who promoted her to be an independent woman and I think helped Edna to see that what she was doing (straying from the social norms of women) was what was best for her. While reading, one of the things I noticed was the symbol of color.

                Colors are described constantly throughout the book. Blue, yellow, white, and black seemed to be the main colors that I noticed. I can’t explain if I noticed the colors because I was looking for them, or if it was during a significant time in the book. I thought it was interesting in class how a group brought up that Adele was white, Reisz was black, and Edna was in the middle. Usually, black means bad and white means good, but in this book that doesn’t seem to be in this case. Reisz is where Edna is striving to be and in a way I think the author may be saying that’s where woman should try to be. Kate Chopin though seemed like a woman that was like Adele. She loved her 6 children and had married Oscar. Does the use of colors show that from the outside, the white (Adele) seems like the right choice and the black (Reisz) seems like the wrong choice. But I also do not think she is trying to say that being the middle is good either—Edna ends up killing herself and is unhappy. I think this shows the difference between being independent and being dependent. Adele depends on her husband and her children while Reisz only has herself. But while Edna has her husband her children to depend on she starts to shift and wants to not be dependent on anyone. She wants to be her own person…but at the end I have noticed she doesn’t seem to want that either. She wants to be able to decide for herself, but she is used to having people and strives to keep that. She still feels as if she needs people. She goes and visits Reisz constantly because she needs that company. She wants Robert and only Robert, and when she knows she probably will never have him she kills herself. She goes to the water. She thought she didn’t need people but she really did.

In the book blue and white were seen as innocent and pure colors. It was interesting that these two colors were seen as pure colors as they are the colors I think of when I think of the ocean. The foam and bubbles are white while the water is seen as blue. The ocean was referenced a lot in this book. It was explained as this place that looks like it is never ending. The ocean is where Edna was awakened, but also closed the book where Edna kills herself. Edna saw the ocean as this never ending place and was so captivated by it. And the fact that she was both awakened by the ocean and ended her life there shows that the ocean does have never ending features. I don’t know what the colors symbolize by having the pure colors as the ocean, but I think it shows that it was where Edna was able to clean herself of the burden of being a wife and mother and be independent, and in the end clean herself of her troubles.

I’m excited to learn more about what the colors symbolized in the book in class tomorrow.