An Interpretation Of Edna’s Growth Pattern In The Awakening

As Kate Chopin’s masterpiece,The Awakening has been neglected for about half a century since its first publication.But with efforts of many scholars,it achieved the canonical status in the American literature.With an elegant writing style,Chopin traced the growth process of Edna,revealing the repressive inner world of the nineteenth-century women.As a universal and important life experience,growth demonstrated how an individual became wise and mature,abandoning innocence,and finally fitted into society.This thesis employed rites of passage to analyze Edna’s growth.Accordingly,Edna’s growth could be divided into three periods: the separation from her previous life,the marginal period,and a new life stage after rites of incorporation.As Edna awakened,the living environment also changed.The separation ceremony was usually achieved through a change of space.As for Edna,the separation ceremony began at Grand Isle.After returning home in New Orleans,she spent a long time lingering in a neutral zone between the “mother-woman” world and the artist world.She moved into the pigeon house after the twenty-ninth birthday.However,she failed to find a new identity.At last,Edna plunged into the sea to finish the ceremony of incorporation.In the course of development,Edna gradually withdrew from the society to confine herself in a narrower space.Unlike the chronological growth of heroes,Edna followed an inward growth pattern.Chopin chose the prevailing pattern of novels of female initiation to trace Edna’s growth.Through several important moments in Edna’s life,Chopin showed a change of her psychology.At first,Chopin described Edna’s dual life in detail,revealing her repressive psychology.Then,she arranged two guiders: Mrs.Ratignolle and Mademoiselle Reisz.Meanwhile,she depicted two male characters: Robert and Arobin to seduce Edna.At last,through Edna’s suicide,Chopin showed her deep sympathy towards the contemporary women.Not only Edna’s own character but also the rigid social norms pushed her to death.