The Awakening: Rethinking on the Relationships of Women＇s Self-being, Family Responsibility, and Soc

廖 曉

Abstract:The Awakening stressed that if women wanted to gain self-being and self-independence they should abandon family and social responsibilities. This thought is too extreme. Womens real freedom and independence could not be gained out of family and social responsibilities. And family responsibilities should not be seen as the fetter to women's pursuit of self-being and self-independence, or it will cause a few problems in marriage and hurt themselves and other persons. Women's real awakening is that there are no conflicts between family and women's self-being. Only based on social harmony and family responsibilities, women could gain real self-being and that is women's real awakening.

Key words:The Awakening freedom and independence self-being family and social responsibilities social harmony

The Awakening, Chopin's major work, was published in 1889. It drew a storm of criticism for its "shocking, immoral, and vulgar" story and quickly went out of print. It is a story of a young wife's gradual awakening to her own sexual and individual "being," and longing for independence and freedom not permitted by the society. The novel's heroine, Edna Pontellier, was one of the Creole-the descendant of the French where women's role was to accompany with husband and to raise children. In such society, women depended on men; they had no self-status but only someone's daughters, wives, lovers, sisters or mothers. The story took place in a summer, when Edna and her family went to the Grand Isle for their holiday when Edna met Robert and slowly got on to her self-consciousness to break the role of women which was set by society. Edna left her husband and children to do what she like painting and to love Robert. However, in the end, Edna realized that she could not escape from the responsibilities as a wife and mother. By the novel's end, Edna had awakened to herself, but found no place for that self in the world she lived. She swam out to sea till her strength was gone. (Kate Chopin, 1981)

As a women novel full of sharp feminine character, The Awakening caused a storm of controversial criticism as soon as it was published, especially for Edna's immoral behavior to pursue her self-independence and freedom which disobeyed the traditional criterion. Furthermore, it brings us to the following questions: what's the role women take in the society? What are women's independence, freedom and individual being? What's the relationship between women and men, between women and family? What's the relationship between women's independence, self-being and the family responsibility? Are these relationships totally opposite? Toward these questions, feminist and people with traditional thoughts have different or even opposite attitudes. And that is why this novel caused so much controversy. Moreover that is why the story ends in Edna's suicide. Therefore, considering the effect it brought to the society and the questions it left to people, it is really a splendid novel with compound impact and great value to the society.

In addition, this novel left a more valuable question for readers to contemplate: how to evaluate the thoughts about women's independence and self-development. In the author's view, women are not men's appurtenances. And she also doubted womens role imposed by the society, in which role womens main concerns in life were to raise their children and to obey their husbands. (魏兆秋,2000) Considering the description of womens unequal role and responsibility in society and Ednas resistance and reflection to this traditional customs in this novel, it has profound effect to our society because it was in the society of the nineteenth-century which gave a heightened meaning to what it means to be a woman: raise their children and obey their husbands. (倪曉燕,2002) Womens equal rights had not accepted by the society, and as women, they suffered from this inequality and had to endure it. Therefore in this situation, the awareness of womens independence emphasized in this novel has great impact and inspiration for women to pursue equality and to develop their independent awareness.

However, Edna, far from being the representative of the awakening of feminine self-consciousness, is not awakened at all. On the contrary, all that she thought and did is unrealistic, romantic, selfish and even absurd. (甘文平, 2004) In this novel, the author implied that womens independence and self-development were contrary to family and society, especially family responsibilities, and so if women wanted to be themselves or be independent, they must or had to break the block of family and society, even to abandon the family responsibility. Undoubtedly, this thought is unrealistic. For hundreds of years, family has been an important and indispensable part in our lives. However, since late 19th century and early 20th century, especially since the start of women liberty movement, family was seen as fetter and restriction of self-development to women. Even the status of mother, wife, and daughter were seen as burden and fetter, too. Furthermore, some even made mistakes on the concept of wife and mother. They extremely thought that wife was such a person who did the housework and obeyed her husband; mother was such a person who looked after children at home, not common woman at all. Therefore, if they wanted to be independent and own freedom, they had to abandon this status of wife and mother to be real women. The British President, Tony Blair, his wife is a fine lawyer of human rights, in 2001, she wanted to put down her job for a short time and go traveling with her husband, however, this behavior caused a heated discussion in public. She was told that her behavior was like "a mistress". And some even considered her as an independent woman who should deal with vital issues but not only be a wife. So here is a question: for women, is family contrary to women's independence? To deal with this question, we should first know what family is. Family is made on the base of love and responsibility; family provides protection for every family member, meanwhile, family responsibility is unavoidable for everyone. Actually, the consciousness of family responsibility is the base of family happiness. (劉彩玲,2005)

However, nowadays, so many women declare that family fetters their development and obstructs their freedom, so women should cast off the fetter to be independent and free. Similarly, in this novel, Edna s desire of independence and freedom was an excuse to free herself from her husband, because after she met Robert she found that her marriage with her husband was not what she wanted. It is known that her married with Mr. Pontellier was not out of love but her rebellion to her parents. So when she met Robert who she fell in love then, she changed her mind. She hated the responsibilities so much that she disregarded her husband's wishes and ignored her children. However, to Robert who she loved, the attitude was different. She loved him and would like to be with him, so when Robert left she felt unhappy. No one wants to be single so if a woman loves someone that she would like to marry him. So here's a question that if Edna married Robert, would she still behave like what she did to Mr. Pontellier? As a wife, she can not abandon certain responsibilities. Therefore, the reason why Edna wanted to get rid of her husband and family was that she did not love him any longer. Because there was no love in their marriage, she did not want to perform the responsibilities. However, to Robert, she still did not extricate herself from the traditional moral criterion - be faithful to her love and lover. It could be seen from Robert's leave to Mexico, when another man- Arobin came into her life.

She wanted something to happen, something; anything: she did not know what. She regretted that she had not made Arobin stay a half hour to talk over the horses with her Her husband seemed to her now like a person whom she had married without love as an excuse(Kate Chopin, 1981)

At this time it is Robert in her mind not her husband, because she loved Robert and was still affected by the traditional moral criterion. Therefore what she longed for, such as freedom and independence, was only an excuse to leave her husband and to love another man Robert. It is her husband whom she did not love hindered her freedom not the so-called marriage. Family should not be seen as fetters and then to be the excuse women used to get rid of the responsibility and to gain independence and freedom. Furthermore, freedom and independence should not be gained out of family and society. Abandoning the responsibility of family and society will hurt the family and also women themselves. In this novel, Edna's husband and children and also she herself suffered from that abandoning. So Edna's suicide is inevitable at the end of the novel. Therefore, marriage can not exist without love and responsibility, and if women want to get full and thorough freedom and independence they are not qualified to have a happy marriage.

The thought about women's independence and freedom was a valuable thinking for the whole society. Especially the women's unequal social status should draw more concern. Women's freedom and independence can not exist out of family and social responsibilities for people cannot separate from the society. Only based on social harmony and family responsibilities, women could gain real self-being and self-independence and that is womens real awakening.

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