DAY 2 THE AWAKENING PSYCHE

EDNA’S NUMEROUS SLEEPING SCENES Edna’s numerous sleeping and awakening scenes —when she has the male companion (her prince?) sitting near her as she dreams. Think Sleeping Beauty, Think Snow White. Someday my prince will come. “She slept but a few hours. They were troubled and feverish hours, disturbed with dreams that were intangible, that eluded her, leaving only an impression upon her half-awakened senses of something unattainable. She was up and dressed in the cool of the early morning. The air was invigorating and steadied somewhat her faculties. However, she was not seeking refreshment or help from any source, either external or from within. She was blindly following whatever impulse moved her, as if she had placed herself in alien hands for direction, and freed her soul of responsibility.” (Ch. XII 57/32)

THE FAIRY TALE: OUTSIDE SOCIETY When Robert and Edna go on a boat trip to Grande Terre, the fairytale develops in the playful exchange between Edna and Robert about the Search for Treasure "We'll go wherever you like," he said. "I'll have Tonie come over and help me patch and trim my boat. We shall not need Beaudelet nor any one. Are you afraid of the pirogue?" "Oh, no." "Then I'll take you some night in the pirogue when the moon shines. Maybe your Gulf spirit will whisper to you in which of these islands the treasures are hidden—direct you to the very spot, perhaps." "And in a day we should be rich!" she laughed. "I'd give it all to you, the pirate gold and every bit of treasure we could dig up. I think you would know how to spend it. Pirate gold isn't a thing to be hoarded or utilized. It is something to squander and throw to the four winds, for the fun of seeing the golden specks fly." "We'd share it, and scatter it together," he said. His face flushed.

SLEEP AS TRANSFORMATION In Chap. XIII, Edna’s physical reaction to the confinement of the church and her need to rest, when she awakes—the conversation between Edna and Robert highlights this fairytale nature: “How many years have I slept?” she inquired. “The whole island seems changed. A new race of beings must of sprung up, leaving only you and me as past relics. How many ages ago did Madame Antoine and Tonie die? And when did our people from Grand Isle disappear from the earth” “You have slept precisely one hundred years. I was left here to guard your slumbers; and for one hundred years I have been out under the shed reading a book. The only evil I couldn’t prevent was to keep a broiled fowl from drying up.” “If it has turned to stone, still will I eat it.” (XIII, 65) However, contrary to the usual fairy tale ending, The Awakening is one that truly begins from the interior. While Robert may awaken the sense of “what if I had a different life?”, the journey is more like Goldilocks or Red Riding Hood (both with bedroom scenes). Edna must avoid the dangers. Her carelessness will get her into trouble, or at least sidetracked from finding her fulfilled life.

EDNA AS PSYCHE Often gods/goddesses interpretation seems to collapse upon itself. However, people are multi-faceted, their personality flaws, their life’s disasters, can be found across tales. Chopin enfolds both the myth of Aphrodite (born from the water, ugly husband, affair with Ares, and returned to the sea) as the frame for the story. She also casts Edna as Psyche—more beautiful than Aphrodite/Venus. Often represents the soul unfulfilled. Men see her beauty, but move on. Aphrodite’s attempt to punish Psyche with an ugly husband fails when Aphrodite’s son, Eros/Cupid (god of Love), is also enraptured by her beauty and becomes her secret husband, unseen as the condition of their romance is that they only meet in darkness,. Psyche can’t resist see her lover, and carries both a dagger and an oil lamp, and finds that she is looking at the most beautiful man. In shock, she ends up burning him with the oil from her lamp. He then believes that she has deceived him and Psyche must go through a series of trials before she can regain his love. Edna as Psyche: Is Leonce the ugly husband? Ugly becomes metaphorical. The Restrictive Conformity. Life-Deadening. “Why, my dear, I should think you’d understand by this time that people don’t do such things; we’ve got to observe les convenances if we ever expect to get on and keep up with the procession. If you felt that you had to leave home this afternoon, you should have left some suitable explanation for your absence” (Chapter XVII, 85)

ROBERT AS DEPARTED EROS: Unable to fight his desire for Edna, he retreats to Mexico and The hope of a reunion between Edna and Robert. Time will tell if they will “be together” (XV, 76) What Edna must evaluate is whether Robert is true love and does one give up one man only to move under the domain of the next? Edna is hurt because she cannot contain Robert. “Robert's going had some way taken the brightness, the color, the meaning out of everything. The conditions of her life were in no way changed, but her whole existence was dulled, like a faded garment which seems to be no longer worth wearing. She sought him everywhere -- in others whom she induced to talk about him. She went up in the mornings to Madame Lebrun's room, braving the clatter of the old sewing-machine. She sat there and chatted at intervals as Robert had done. She gazed around the room at the pictures and photographs hanging upon the wall, and discovered in some corner an old family album, which she examined with the keenest interest, appealing to Madame Lebrun for enlightenment concerning the many figures and faces which she discovered between its pages.” (XVI, 78/46) Return to New Orleans and thoughts of Robert: “As Edna walked along the street she was thinking of Robert. She was still under the spell of her infatuation. She had tried to forget him, realizing the inutility of remembering. But the thought of him was like an obsession, ever pressing itself upon her. It was not that she dwelt on the details of their acquaintance, or recalled in any special or peculiar way his personality; it was his being, his existence, which dominated her thought, fading sometimes as if it would melt into the mist of the forgotten, reviving again with an intensity which filled her with an incomprehensible longing” (XVIII 90)

REBELLION: EDNA’S CLAIMS Seeds of Edna’s Rebellion: “It did not strike her as in the least grotesque that she should be making of Robert the object of conversation and leading her husband to speak of him. The sentiment which she entertained for Robert in no way resembled that which she felt for her husband, or had ever felt, or ever expected to feel. She had all her life long been accustomed to harbor thoughts and emotions which never voiced themselves. They had never taken the form of struggles. They belonged to her and were her own, and she entertained the conviction that she had a right to them and that they concerned no one but herself. Edna had once told Madame Ratignolle that she would never sacrifice herself for her children, or for any one.” (XVI, 80/47) Then had followed a rather heated argument; the two women did not appear to understand each other or to be talking the same language. Edna tried to appease her friend, to explain. "I would give up the unessential; I would give my money, I would give my life for my children; but I wouldn't give myself. I can't make it more clear; it's only something which I am beginning to comprehend, which is revealing itself to me." "I don't know what you would call the essential, or what you mean by the unessential," said Madame Ratignolle, cheerfully; "but a woman who would give her life for her children could do no more than that -- your Bible tells you so. I'm sure I couldn't do more than that." "Oh, yes you could!" laughed Edna. (Chapter XVI 80/47-48)

SYMBOLIC ACTS Tableau Vivant (Living Tableaux) Create a dialogue which reflects the following scenes which develop the “state of mind” of the marriage: The Big Fight (84-87 Edna’s Throwing of her Ring (87-88) Commitment from marriage towards art (94-96) Advice from Mademoiselle Reisz ( ) Conversation between Mr. Pontellier and the Doctor ( )