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Analysis Guide
Guiding Question:
How does The Awakening speak to the roles of women and the conventions of literature at the end of the 19th century? How does Kate Chopin use other characters in The Awakening in order to cast Edna Pontellier's desires—and social limitations—in sharp relief?
Literary Context: Four major literary movements can claim some aspect of The Awakening, for in this "small compass . . . [is illustrated] virtually all the major American intellectual and literary trends of the nineteenth century" (Skaggs, 80). Identify the elements of each movement found in novel. (http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/eng384/katemove.htm)
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§ Romanticism
§ Realism
§ Naturalism
§ Local Color
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Vocabulary:
§ Look up all definitions, synonyms, and antonyms of “awakening” and “awake.”
§ Look up any of the following words you don’t know.
§ How does the diction Chopin uses reflect characterization, tone, and theme?
§ Chapters 1-10: persistence, cease, croquet, bonbons, incessantly, infusion, indiscriminately, sole, insistent, ministering, bodice, unamiable, prudery, contemptuous, repulse, quadroon, clamor, diminutive, camomile, muslin, gauntlet, countenance, portal, fictitious, speculation, bouillon, festoon, immutable, imperious, plaintive, dissent, malicious, totter, capricious, supercilious
§ Chapters 11-20: compelling, intangible, pirogue, composure, giddy, bough, speculate, pacify, pretentious, sardonically, treacherous, preposterous, convulsively, postscript, nutriment, jalousies, scrupulously, diminutive, trifle, procure, infatuation, complacency, ennui, extraneous, pandemonium, annihilation, rebuke
§ Chapters 21-30: perambulation, bequeath, toddies, palpitant, reminiscent, coercion, devoid, insolent, compulsion, impulsive, spasmodic, languorous, susceptible, prolific, invigorate, tabouret, mirth, candelabra, commodious, volition
§ Chapters 31-34: (French accents can not be used here) remonstrance, sumptuous, patois, reverie, stupor, insurmountable, despondency, voluptuous, demented, incoherent, Bon Dieu (Good Lord! My God!), peignoir (lingerie - a nightgown/robe set), soirees musicales (musical evening performances), Ah! si tu savais (Oh! If only you knew...), la belle dame (the lovely lady), ma foi (my faith), Bonne nuit, ma reine, soyez sage (Good night, my queen, be good/well-behaved), les mets (food), les entre-mets (snacks), la corbeille (the basket) Other French vocabulary: Allez-vous-en! (Go on with you!); accouchement (delivery=baby); camaraderie (friendship); par example (by example); blaguer-farceur-gros bete, va (prankster-joker-fat "beast", go); mais ce n'est pas mal! (But, that's not bad!); Elle s'y connait, elle a de la force, oui (She knows about it, she is strong, yes); ma chere (my dear/dearest/darling); pauvre cherie (poor darling); Tiens, (Well, well/So)' "Voila que Mme Ratignolle est jalouse!" (It's/There's Mrs. Ratignolle who is jealous)
Symbols/Motifs: (1) Explain what the object symbolizes; and (2) Find a quote that supports your assertion. Note the page number.
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§ Blue
§ Red
§ Fountain
§ Yellow
§ Vase
§ Cat
§ Leaves
§ Moon
§ Ring
§ Dog
§ Bee
§ Bird/wing
§ Waves
§ City
§ Parasol
§ Umbrella
§ Horse
§ Fan
§ Art
§ Clothes
§ Food
§ Houses
§ Learning to swim
§ Ocean, gulf, sea
§ Piano playing
§ Sleep (hmm…Hamlet)
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Themes:
(1) Explain how the following are SPECIFIC themes in the work; and (2) Find a quote that supports your assertion. Note the page number.
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§ Search for Identity
§ Repressed feelings
§ Alienation & loneliness
§ Personal freedom (esposa)
§ Public identity vs. private needs
§ Flesh vs. Spirit
§ Awakening from slumber of patriarchal social convention
§ Sexual awakening
§ Familial relationships
§ Education
§ Rebirth
§ Victorian women
§ Independence
§ Consequences of violation of expectations/choices
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Mood:
§ Find ten examples of diction (words and phrases) in the novel that denote tone. Explain the connection. You may use the words from the vocabulary list, but I’d also like you to find some phrases.
Point of View:
§ Identify the type.
§ Why did Chopin choose to write the novel from this point of view?
§ Do you believe the choice to be effective? Explain.
Setting: (1) Explain what the object symbolizes; and (2) Find a quote that supports your assertion. Note the page number.
§ Time & Place:
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§ Exposition
§ Rising Action (complication/crisis)
§ Turning Point
§ Climax
§ Falling Action
§ Denouement
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§ Historical context:
Conflict(s):
§ Identify the types of conflict and cite a quote (denote the page number) for each.
Literary Terms/Devices:
§ Apply anagorsis to the novel. Cite a quote (denote the page number).
§ Find two examples of paradox (denote the page number).
§ Find two examples of Chopin’s use of understatement in her prose style (denote the page number).
§ Find five similes (denote the page number).
§ Find three metaphors (denote the page number).
§ Find five examples of imagery. (Include various senses.) (Denote the page number).
§ Allusions to mythological and folkloric tales
§ http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/eng384/myths.htm
Myths and Fairy Tales: Context of The Awakening
There are no direct mentions of myths and fairy tales in The Awakening except for the Gulf spirit, but there are many subtle allusions to a body of mythological or folkloric tales. Listed below are the stories referenced in these allusions, understanding them will provide extra richness when reading the novel.
§ Look up the stories of each. See the link above. Do NOT simply copy and paste. These allusions will help you tremendously on the AP Exam AND in your university career. Please reach…..
§ How do each of the myths apply specifically to the novel?
Classical Myths
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§ Aphrodite (Greek) or Venus (Latin):
§ Artemis (Greek) or Diana (Latin):
§ Echo and Narcissus (Greek and Latin):
§ Gulf Spirit:
§ Icarus (Greek and Latin):
§ Orpheus and Eurydice (Greek and Latin):
§ Psyche (Greek and Latin):
§ Selene (Greek) or Luna ( Latin):
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Fairy Tales:
§ Focus on the overall pattern and structure of fairy tales.
§ Fairy tales that have women as their central characters are usually structured in this manner: a quick summary of their childhood where the reader learns that they are beautiful, good, and protected from the outside world (Cinderella and Snow White are in exile; Sleeping Beauty is in a loving home). In their adolescence, a spell is either cast upon them or an old spell takes effect. In most cases, the spell leads to sleep, but it may lead to isolation (Cinderella in a kitchen, Rapunzel in a tower, Sleeping Beauty and Snow White are cast asleep). The effect of this sleep/isolation is that the woman is kept innocent, so that when the hero arrives and breaks the spell or finds the woman, she is pure (because she is inexperienced) and worthy of love and happiness.
§ What this means for Edna?
§ When men are the heroes of fairy tales the pattern is very different. They are constructed more in keeping with stories of quest. The character faces a series of challenges or tests, completes them, and takes his place in the world. Spells are usually problems to overcome (being turned into a frog or climbing a wall of thorns). Transforming spells separate male centered fairy tales even more from their female counterparts. When a man is changed in appearance, he can no longer rely on his looks, but must succeed through his actions (Rosowski).
§ What spell must Edna overcome?
§ Edna combines both male and female fairy tale aspects in her life. Trace some of them to see what Chopin was doing: in a society divided by sex and structured by rules, Edna's life serves as an example of what works and what does not, in the same way fairy tales instruct. To help you out, remember her childhood in Kentucky, the functions of men in her life, the repetitive scenes of sleep, her pigeon house, and her final meeting with Robert.
§ In contrast to traditional fairy tales, keep in mind this explanation of novels of female awakening: they tend to have protagonists who grow significantly "only after fulfilling the fairy-tale expectation that they will marry and live "happily ever after," they frequently portray a break from marital, rather than parental, authority and thus are often novels of adultery. The development of the story is usually "compressed into brief emphatic moments. Since the significant changes are internal, flashes of recognition often replace the continuous unfolding of actions" (Abel, 12)
§ How does The Awakening specifically apply to the above?
§ Two final specific fairy tales are Goldilocks and Snow White. Remember that Goldilocks wandered into the bears' home, ate their food, sat in their chairs, and fell asleep in their beds. It is the story of a very active and aggressive little girl, one not afraid of her own desires. In Snow White, the Queen looks in the mirror to see the most fair, and sees a reflection that is not her own. Does life end happily ever after? Why is Chopin alluding to fairy tale structure? (Think realism.) What is the novel saying about poetic justice?
Favorite Quotes:
§ List ten quotes that you either deem significant to the novel, can apply to you personally, can apply to life, made you question your previous beliefs or principles, or thought was cool. (Denote the page number.)
Extended Reading:
§ “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin: It’s in your Awakening text.
§ “The Storm” by Kate Chopin: It’s in your Awakening text.
§ “A White Heron” by Sarah Orne Jewett: online.
o http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~ehrlich/224/w_heron.htm
§ “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman: online.
§ Online: http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/browse-mixed-new?id=GilYell&tag=public&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed
§ Why I Wrote The Yellow Wallpaper
By Charlotte Perkins Gilman
First published in the October, 1913 issue of The Forerunner
Many and many a reader has asked that. When the story first came out, in the New England Magazine about 1891, a Boston physician made protest in The Transcript. Such a story ought not to be written, he said; it was enough to drive anyone mad to read it.
Another physician, in Kansas I think, wrote to say that it was the best description of incipient insanity he had ever seen, and--begging my pardon--had I been there?
Now the story of the story is this: For many years I suffered from a severe and continuous nervous breakdown tending to melancholia--and beyond. During about the third year of this trouble I went, in devout faith and some faint stir of hope, to a noted specialist in nervous diseases, the best known in the country. This wise man put me to bed and applied the rest cure, to which a still-good physique responded so promptly that he concluded there was nothing much the matter with me, and sent me home with solemn advice to "live as domestic a life as far as possible," to "have but two hours' intellectual life a day," and "never to touch pen, brush, or pencil again" as long as I lived. This was in 1887.
I went home and obeyed those directions for some three months, and came so near the borderline of utter mental ruin that I could see over.
Then, using the remnants of intelligence that remained, and helped by a wise friend, I cast the noted specialist's advice to the winds and went to work again--work, the normal life of every human being; work, in which is joy and growth and service, without which one is a pauper and a parasite--ultimately recovering some measure of power.
Being naturally moved to rejoicing by this narrow escape, I wrote The Yellow Wallpaper, with its embellishments and additions, to carry out the ideal (I never had hallucinations or objections to my mural decorations) and sent a copy to the physician who so nearly drove me mad. He never acknowledged it.
The little book is valued by alienists and as a good specimen of one kind of literature. It has, to my knowledge, saved one woman from a similar fate--so terrifying her family that they let her out into normal activity and she recovered.
But the best result is this. Many years later I was told that the great specialist had admitted to friends of his that he had altered his treatment of neurasthenia since reading The Yellow Wallpaper.
It was not intended to drive people crazy, but to save people from being driven crazy, and it worked.