Quotes for The Awakening

AP Lit.

The Awakening Quote
How to Read Literature Like a Professor Quote
Reveal deeper meaning of The Awakening Quote
1. “He reproached his wife with her inattention her habitual neglect of the children. If it was not a mother’s place to look after children, whose on earth was it?...Tears came so fast to Mrs. Pontellier’s eyes…Such experiences as the foregoing were not uncommon in her married life.” (Chopin, 7-8)
1. “When Virginia Woolf writes about women of her time only being permitted a certain range of activities, we do her and ourselves a great disservice by not seeing the social criticism involved.” (Foster, 123)
This reveals that what Mr. Pontellier is thinking/saying to his wife is just a natural occurrence and was very prevalent in the time of the novel. Edna Pontellier has a set role and should not dare deviate from that role. This encompasses the thought process of almost every man during that time.
2. “Though Edna had spoken of the dinner as a very grand affair, it was in truth a very small affair and very select, in so much as the guests invited were few and were selected with discrimination.”(Chopin, 116)
2. “… in the real world, breaking bread together is an act of sharing and peace, since if you’re breaking bread you’re not breaking heads… the act of taking food into our bodies is so personal that we really only want to do it with people we’re very comfortable with. (Foster, 8)
Edna, by inviting only a select few, feels very comfortable around these people. While her husband is not at this dinner (the one that should be the most comforting to her) Alcee and Mdm. Reisz, to name a few, are gathering around her to enjoy her farewell dinner to her new beginning.
3. A feeling of exultation overtook her, as if some power of significant import had been given her to control the working of her body and her soul. She grew daring and reckless, overestimating her strength. She wanted to swim far out, where no woman had swum before.”(Chopin, 37)
3. “True, when he is rescued from the lake and steps back into the stream of his life, everything has shifted and changed, but there’s a more violent change in the universe where he’s concerned.” (Foster, 162-163)
Edna figuring out she could swim released a new sense of freedom about her. This freedom related to a sort of baptism or rebirth of Edna. It seems as though when Edna comes out of the water, her whole life changes: from her attitude to her perception of other people and the world around her.
4. “Edna Pontellier could not have told why, wishing to go to the beach with Robert,…There were days when she was unhappy,..; when life appeared to her like a grotesque pandemonium and humanity like worms struggling blindly toward inevitable annihilation.”(Chopin, 17 &78)
4. “Summer is passion and love; winter, anger and hatred.” (Foster, 185)
During the summer, Edna was full of hope (for her husband) and love and compassion, as well as longing, for her friend Robert. When she returns home, and the seasons change into fall and winter, her life becomes drab and almost worthless to her. The Grand Isle and Robert awaken her mostly during the summer.
5. “The foamy wavelets curled up to her white feet, and coiled like serpents about her ankles…. The touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace… the shore was far behind her, and her strength was gone.” (Chopin, 156-157)
5. “Ever since we crawled up on the land, the water, it seemed to us, has been trying to reclaim us…. So water in great volume speaks to us at a very basic level of our being.” (Foster, 70)
The ocean is everlasting and all consuming to Edna. It seems that it is the only power that she will allow to have power over her in her final moments of life.