The Awakening: Chapter Analysis

Summary: Chapter I
The novel opens on Grand Isle, a summer retreat for the wealthy French Creoles of New Orleans. Léonce Pontellier, a wealthy New Orleans businessman of forty, reads his newspaper outside the Isle’s main guesthouse. Two birds, the pets of the guesthouse’s proprietor, Madame Lebrun, are making a great deal of noise. The parrot repeats phrases in English and French while the mockingbird sings persistently. Hoping to escape the birds’ disruptive chatter, Léonce retreats into the cottage he has rented. Glancing back at the main building, Léonce notes that the noise emanating from it has increased: the Farival twins play the piano, Madame Lebrun gives orders to two servants, and a lady in black walks back and forth with her rosary
Despite the attempts of the other guests to teach her, she is still unable to swim. Suddenly, she feels empowered and steps into the water, earning surprised applause from her onlookers. She swims out alone, for the first time truly feeling a sense of control over her body and soul. She becomes reckless and wants to swim out “where no woman had swum before,” and she scolds herself for discovering the simplicity of this act after so much time spent “splashing about like a baby!” When she looks back to the shore, however, she realizes how far she has gone and worries that she will perish from not having the strength to make it back on her own. When she arrives back on shore, she immediately dresses in the bathhouse and starts to walk home alone, despite the attempts of her husband and the other guests to retain
Edna takes him on her lap and soothes him to sleep. Her friend also tells her that Léonce was worried when Edna did not return from the Chênière after mass, but once he was assured that Edna was merely resting at Madame Antoine’s and that Madame Antoine’s son would see her home, he left for the club on business. Adèle then departs for her own cottage, hating to leave her husband alone. After Robert and Edna put Etienne to bed, Robert bids her good night and Edna remarks that they have been together all day. Robert leaves, and as she awaits Léonce’s return, Edna recognizes, but cannot explain, the transformation she has undergone during her stay at Grand Isle. Because she is not tired herself, Edna assumes that Robert isn’t actually tired either, and she wonders why he did not stay with her. She regrets his departure and sings to herself the tune he had sung as they crossed the bay to the Chênière—“Ah! Si tu savais . . .” (“Ah! If only you