Has anyone read Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House ? I feel there is some similarities in the plot and characters between The Awakening and A Doll's House.
Has anyone read Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House ? I feel there is some similarities in the plot and characters between The Awakening and A Doll's House.
I read the play long ago and I saw it recently; a BBC production on DVD. I have definitely been reminded of the Ibsen play, while reading TA, but I think there are many differences here. I do think that Nora and Edna were both greatly repressed by their husbands and society. In a way, Nora, more so. Do you recall her husband would not allow her to have macaroons; she had to hide them? He was a real tyrant to his wife. I am not sure that Edna's husband is quite as bad. There are children involved in both instances, but I think Nora had a closer bond to hers; although, in the end, that may be questionable. I think that "Anna Karenina" also could be compared to this book, with some distinct commonalities, as well.Quote:
Originally Posted by Amethyst2010
I do not feel that Edana's husband was really bad at all nor that Edna was truly mistreated by him, she just did not have an emotional bond with him. But for the most part he did not greatly interfer with her. He was concenred when she began to act in a way that seemed strange to him but he did not really strongly try to impose his will on her.
I do not feel that Edna was directly oppressed by her husband as an individual but rather by the system of marraige as it was established in soceity at that time and the place of women and thier limited choices. In fact I find that Chopin is rather fair and perhaps even somewhat sympathetic to male characters in ther stories. She does not make them look like just absolute tyrants or particuarly villonous, but she makes them instead simply products of thier time. They are as much locked into the system as anyone else. Though they might have more freedom to move out of it than women have.
I've only read the first five chapters, strapped for time and poorly. I don't like Robert, at 26 (?) I would have expected a more mature person, he is what Forster would call 'flat'. Does he change? Could the awakening mentioned in the title be not only of Edna's but his too? Does he truly feel for Edna or is she just another in a long line of unavailable women to keep the boredom away?
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Originally Posted by Dark Muse
I do agree with you here. You stated this well, Dark Muse. I liked the way Chopin does sympathise with the husband to some extent, but at times he very typically acts like a man in that he is more dominient to the point of being harsh and nasty (like the dinner scene); however, as you say he is the product of the times and he is miffed by the sudden changes in his otherwise passive wife. This change has greatly rocked his world I am sure.
My opinion on Robert wavered many times throughout the story. I never really came to solidily feel one way or the other about him. As far as his feelings and intentions toward Edna, well you will just have to keep reading to come to decide what you think of thier relatonship.Quote:
Originally Posted by optimisticnad
The idea of Awakening could apply to Robert in some ways.
I think mine did, too; waver. I am still reading the book and Robert has not returned yet, so I can't recall too much about him from prior readings; not about the time when he returns. I will be anxious tonight to read that part. Maybe, it is an 'awakening' for him, as well. I hadn't thought of that before. Interesting.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dark Muse
:banana:Quote:
Originally Posted by Janine
I have contributed something to the book club, for once!
Yes, you did; very good observation, optimisticnad.Quote:
Originally Posted by optimisticnad
I am about 3 pages from the end of the book now; was reading it at breakfast.
Just finished Chapter 23. On the back jacket of my copy, it says that "audiences were taken aback by Chopin's daring portrayal of a woman trapped in a stifling marriage." I don't see Mr. P as a stifling husband. I think he genuinely loves his wife, but doesn't understand what is happening with her. I'm not sure I do either. She didn't want Robert when they were together, but now that he's away, she is getting more and more infatuated with him. Janine, Does the story ever say how old her children are? It sounds almost like post-partem depression. ( I'm not an expert on this topic, so if I'm completely off based here, please let me know) She very much wants to answer to no one, she wants no responsibilites. I think she is actually losing herself, insteading of "awakening" to a new self.
I had written awhile ago about how solitude plays the story. Remember, that was the piano piece that Madame Reisz played? And now, it seems, the word "alone" pops up. She wants Mr. P. to leave her alone... and in Chapter 19, in the very same paragraph she recalls..."There were days when she was very happy without knowing why...She liked then to wander alone into strange and unfamiliar places. She discovered many a sunny, sleepy corner, fashioned to dream in. And she found it good to dream and to be alone and unmolested.
I think she's trying to be someone she's not.
Hope I didn't go on too much. I am enjoying the story and everyone's
comments too.
Reagurding Edna an her husband, it is true I do not think he is truly stifling, but in a way I think that is Chopin's point. As the peice is about society of the day, when women did not have a whole lot of choice when it came to love and marraige. I think what is really stifling is the system of marraige as it was set up back than.
Of course in this day and age if a couple grows a part from each other, Edna would have been able to divorce her husband and marry Robert, but naturally such things are forbiddin for women to do now, as it does make some remark somewhere in the book about how Edna never married for love, but now she has indeed found love, and is stifiled becasue she is trapped in a marrige, where she is not ill-treated but in which she is not truly happy.
I do not think it ever says how old the children are, but I think they are suppose to be older than infants. In my mind I saw them as being a between maybe 4-6 years old, but it does not really say so that is just the impression I had.
Hi Lynne,... and I am three pages away from finishing; well, the second time around, so I know the ending. I think I would agree with Dark Muse on what she said before this post. Don't faint, DM, we are actually agreeing again. I do however, see your point, Lynne, on somethings you mention here or question. I also could not help but think Edna selfish at times, even sort of juevenille in her thinking, and I did question her stability a few posts back. She also seemed a bit lazy to me and definitely, she went to the extreme of not wanting to deal with any responsibility; true she went to visit her children, but it seemed that was not saying much for her, in her attention as a mother, in the long run. I think that when we all come to the ending, we can't exactly say she was a totally rational woman. I was wondering how old Edna is and how old Robert is; also, the other young man she has taken some interest in, before Robert returned back home. I thought someone in the discussion mentioned Robert being around '26 (?)'; was it you, optimisticnad? I thought I recalled reading that Edna was 28 early in the book. I have no idea how old her husband would be, but feel he is a number of years older than Edna; I don't know why I think that; maybe since he is so responsible and conventional. Now if Robert is as old as 26; then Edna and him are closer in age, than I was envisioning.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lynne50
I do think that you're correct Dark Muse in saying that in this day and age Edna could have gotten a divorce and then married Robert. If we do the 'what if' do you all believe that Robert would have married her if he could and if so would he have been right for Edna? It's a hypothetical question, I know, but thought it might be interesting to entertain the idea and see what everyone's opinion on it would be.
As I read this story, I keep thinking it must have been written in the early part of the 20th Century. It is indeed a surprise and must have been quite shocking a novel to present in the late 19th Century. I was thinking it something like "Lady Chatterly's Lover", but no children are involved in that story although Mellors (Connie's gamekeeper lover) does indeed have a child, but does not live with the child. The ending of course, is much different; but 'convention' and 'repression' are themes in that story, too and Connie is surely 'awakened'. I am now wondering if Edna is ever truly awakened. She seems to think she has been; but there are times she wavers in mood. The real point, I am trying to make is that LCL was written much later than TA, which really surprised me, since LCL caused a huge stir and it was even banned in England; including a court trial for obsenity. Of course, TA does not go into explicit sexual details, as LCL did. But to me this novel feels contemporary, even in the style; so I found it hard to believe it was written so early.
I recall that comment on 'solitude' and I think that Edna is just as trapped in solitude as she is in convention. She goes from one extreme to the other and now she is living a sort of dream existence. Did you get to the part, Lynne, where she moves into the little 'pigeon house'? I think that indicates her want of solitude and aloneness; different than the aloneness she felt with her husband or going along with society and it's responsibilites. I, however, do not think she has truly found herself by the end of the novel.Quote:
I had written awhile ago about how solitude plays the story. Remember, that was the piano piece that Madame Reisz played? And now, it seems, the word "alone" pops up. She wants Mr. P. to leave her alone... and in Chapter 19, in the very same paragraph she recalls..."There were days when she was very happy without knowing why...She liked then to wander alone into strange and unfamiliar places. She discovered many a sunny, sleepy corner, fashioned to dream in. And she found it good to dream and to be alone and unmolested.
I think she's trying to be someone she's not.
Hope I didn't go on too much. I am enjoying the story and everyone's
comments too.
It may be as you suggest: "I think she's trying to be someone she's not." I must think about that for awhile. I am not sure she knows what she should be. I am not convinced she has found her true self yet.
I cannot really blame her as far as her relations with her children back than if she were married she would not have had much of a choice or option to have kids weather she wanted them or not, having children were forced upon her. So speaking as someone who does not want kids, I could not imagine being stuck with them against my will.
For a woman who did not want to be a typical mother/housewife, her only real option would be to never be in a relationship with anyone, but to be a "spinster"
I haven't read this book in a long time (and I'm not reading it now), since undergrad days and that's a while back. So it's not fresh in my mind. But that's how I felt too. What was so bad about her husband? What was so bad about her life? I don't think that Chopin's point was a woman trapped in a bad marriage. I think the point is that here is a person who's soul just wants to go beyond the common every day life. It's not so much a woman's lib story but a story of a person (could have been a man, but the author chose to write from the point of view of a character from her gender) of a person who seeks a trascendental experience.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lynne50
To an extent I agree with you, but from my reading of other storys I have read by Chopin, she is very concerned particuarly with women wanting to express themselves beyond the limits of thier soceity, and about the inablity of women to be able to really express thier passion and desire, both in love, as well as in more spiritual or artistic experinces. She deals a lot with women strugling to break free, not from just the physcial bonds of marraige, but to try and find thier own place in the world outside of the influcne of others and the limitations placed upon them.