Discussion Topic
Adèle Ratignolle's condition and fate in The Awakening
Summary:
Adèle Ratignolle's condition in The Awakening is that of a devoted wife and mother, embodying the societal ideal of femininity. Her fate is to remain within the confines of these roles, contrasting sharply with Edna's quest for independence and self-discovery.
What happens to Adèle Ratignolle in The Awakening?
Adèle Ratignolle is Edna's friend but also her foil, or opposite. Adèle is content, as Edna is not, with being a wife and mother. She is glad to subordinate her own needs to her family. Nevertheless, because she is Creole, she is able to speak warmly and openly to Edna, awakening Edna's turbulent emotions.
Near the end of the novel, Adèle summons Edna to be with her for comfort as she gives birth to a child. Edna was drugged during the birth of her two sons, so she only has vague memories of childbirth:
She recalled faintly an ecstasy of pain, the heavy odor of chloroform, a stupor which had deadened sensation, and an awakening to find a little new life to which she had given being, added to the great unnumbered multitude of souls that come and go.
Her drugged state made it difficult to feel an immediate...
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bond with her sons.
As she watches Adèle's agony during the birth process, Edna resents the way women have been forced into motherhood, experiencing "a flaming, outspoken revolt against the ways of Nature." However, she also has an increased appreciation for what she went through to have her sons and a renewed sense of the connection she has to them. She realizes she has obligations to them and cannot simply disregard their welfare. As the chapter ends, Adèle tells her to think of "the children."
Edna knows that she does have to think about her sons and how her actions have an impact on their lives, but she decides to put that task off until tomorrow. She comes away from the scene seeing childbirth as "torture" but also realizing that her children are a competing and real obligation that interferes with her desire to simply do what she wants:
She remembered Adèle's voice whispering, "Think of the children; think of them." She meant to think of them; that determination had driven into her soul like a death wound—but not to-night.
Adèle's childbirth is important because of the impact it has on Edna, reinforcing Adèle's supporting role in the novel.
What is Adèle Ratignolle's "condition" in The Awakening?
Adèle Ratignolle's "condition" is pregnancy. The narrator says that Adèle has been married for seven years and that she has a baby approximately every two years or so; thus, she has three babies already by the time the narrative begins. The narrator claims that Adèle is "beginning to think of a fourth one," and so she is always "talking about her 'condition.'" However, her condition is not at all obvious, and evidently, no one would have any idea that she has this condition if it were not often mentioned in conversation.
The fact that Adèle's "condition" is discussed at the same time as her marriage and pregnancies is a good clue to a modern reader that her fourth and current pregnancy is referred to as her "condition." It isn't obvious to other people yet because she is only in the early months of pregnancy and isn't really beginning to show. During this era, it was considered taboo to refer to pregnancy, and so it was only referred to euphemistically, such as it is here, as Adèle's "condition."
Later in the text, Edna Pontellier, the main character, attends Adèle during childbirth. At that point, it's been several months, and everyone has returned to New Orleans from Grand Isle.