Chopin, Kate - Wayne Batten (essay date fall 1985)

Wayne Batten (essay date fall 1985)

SOURCE: Batten, Wayne. “Illusion and Archetype: The Curious Story of Edna Pontellier.” Southern Literary Journal, 18, no. 1 (fall 1985): 73-88.

[In the following essay, Batten examines Chopin's ambiguity of meaning regarding the notion of illusion in The Awakening.]

Near the end of The Awakening, the protagonist is summoned by her friend Adèle Ratignolle, who is in labor for her fourth child. Although Edna herself has two children, the spectacle of childbirth leaves her shaken, and the kindly Doctor Mandelet insists on walking her home. Both the Doctor and Adèle know that Edna has moved out of her husband's house and possibly returned the attentions of the roué Alcée Arobin, and they may suspect, as the reader knows, that she is about to consummate her long-incubating passion for Robert Lebrun. The trouble, the Doctor tells Edna, is that

“youth is given up to...

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