The Awakening

            I had a lot of writing to do on Wednesday but I also needed to wash a few things. The heat wave had broken but it was still warm enough to fully dry a shirt and to mostly dry a pair of shorts out on the deck.

            If I were still on holiday from school I would have normally been able to start writing my review of Shab-e She’r on Wednesday, but I still had to type out my lecture and tutorial notes from Tuesday’s philosophy class. Plus, I had to go to 20^th Century US Literature class that evening.

            There was a class ahead of ours this time and it ran a little late. When Scott arrived he went straight in to help motivate the other professor to wrap things up.

            Scott told us that although it wasn’t as hot out as it has been lately, it was still stifling in his office at University College and he had felt that he might lose consciousness while he was working there.

            We looked at Kate Chopin’s novel, “The Awakening”, which was first published in 1899. Scott told pointed out that Willa Cather gave it a very bad review because of the subject matter and the fact that it was too romantic. Chopin did not experience much success after its publication, mostly because she died.

            Kate Chopin was one of the first female writers to make a living by pen, though most of her money came from translating French texts, such as the works of Flaubert. She was very influenced by French writing. She was an intellectual and moved comfortably in highbrow circles with friends such as Charles Darwin. When her husband died she had to raise four children on her own. Scott commented that it sounds like a Kenny Rogers song.

            She would not have considered herself a feminist of a suffragette.

            Her original title for “The Awakening” was “A Solitary Soul”, which was very Flaubert. The book was forgotten for 64 years because the United States just hadn’t been ready for it. Southern writing was considered to be “local colour”. I had thought that local colour meant isolated ethnic culture but Scott said it generally has to be rural, so New York would not be exotic enough. Mark Twain’s work is also considered to depict local colour. It was a middle class fad to read of local colour, nostalgia, local dialects and African Americans because these were considered less serious subjects.

            Scott asked us to define “awakening”. Some of the offerings were: coming into consciousness from a dream and awakened sexuality. He pointed out that awakening is not always a pleasant experience. Sometimes it hurts to wake up because we awaken to limitations.

            The book opens with a parrot speaking. This could represent repetition, deception and the tropics but it is also a caged bird, like Edna.

            Scott said that in 1853 a cholera epidemic killed 4,000 people in New Orleans. According to my research though, the cholera only killed 126, while yellow fever wiped out 8,000. It did not however affect the people who could afford to vacation on Grand Isle. The island was a place where women had power.

            The words “octoroon” and “quadroon” referred to people that were one-eighth and one quarter Black. Any amount made them less than equal to Whites. Edna’s “awakening” was made possible by servants like these because otherwise she would have had to take care of her family by herself and wouldn’t have had time to pursue artistic interests or love affairs.

            The Creoles in this era were elites, but the term means something entirely different now.

            Edna was out of place among the Creoles. When her husband became alarmed about her having gotten sunburn it was because her colouring had made her appear beneath her class.

            A novel in this era that begins with an already married heroine would have to go somewhere else and so she would have to commit adultery.

            Women at this time did not have the right to own property. When Edna moves out, in order to save face her husband arranges to make it appear that he had orchestrated her relocation so that he could renovate his home.

             Why was Edna’s husband so upset that she wanted to spend the night outside in the hammock? It was a break in tradition because he wanted to have sex with her as usual. As is shown in Margaret Atwood’s “Alias Grace”, a woman of that time could be institutionalized for not having sex with her husband. Scott said that marital rape was not made illegal in Canada until the early 70s. It turns out that it was legal until January of 1983.

            Unlike Edna, her friend Adele is a mother-woman; she is an angel of the house who elevates her home. She is devoted to her family and to the cult of true womanhood. The novel occurs over the length of Adele’s pregnancy. There are 39 numbered parts to the novel. Are they chapters? There are 38 or 39 weeks in a pregnancy. Edna lost her mother at a very young age. She is open to affection and there is a moment in which Adele is caressing her.

            Mademoiselle Reisz is a stubborn, homely artist with a bad sense of fashion who had no use for anyone but Edna. She plays Chopin, romantic music that especially moves Edna almost as if she is being exquisitely tortured.
            Adele and Reisz are the two extremes between which Edna falls. Edna is aroused in different senses by both women.

            The narrative is that of both a physical and psychological journey.

            She has sex with Aroban and her attitude to sex seems to be the same that she finally has towards dying. It’s in the moment.

            The concerns at the end of the 19th Century were birth rates, syphilis and the regulation of female sexuality.

            Two recurring images are the young lovers being followed by the woman in black carrying the prayer book.

Scott let us out halfway through the class after complaining a couple of times that he was “shvitzing”.

            When I was unlocking the door of my building Taro walked up and introduced me to one of his bikes. He told me he has two seasonal bikes for his work as a bike courier and one for just riding on his own. I asked if e liked being a courier and he answered that he did but the money is lousy these days. He’s been doing it for eight years and he’s just switched companies. I inquired as to whether Uber would be an option. He confirmed that there’s more money in food delivery and that he’d considered that before this job came up. I told him that I’d be afraid to take up cycling for a living because it might cause me to lose my love for riding. He declared, “I hear ya!”