Step inside The Awakening

The film without the cuts. And the book itself.

She wakes to herself in a world with no room for her freedom.

9:41

The Cast

Edna Pontellier

Main · Pontellier household

A respectable wife and mother begins to feel that her inward life cannot fit inside the forms prepared for her.

Locations

Grand Isle

island resort

Cottages face the Gulf, where a summer's ease and a woman's first unrest rise in the same warm air.

Passage

A chorus of half-understood voices turns welcome into irritation and uneasy foreboding.

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The Author’s Pen

The Parrot at the Door

A green and yellow parrot, which hung in a cage outside the door, kept repeating over and over:

“_Allez vous-en! Allez vous-en! Sapristi!_ That’s all right!”

He could speak a little Spanish, and also a language which nobody understood, unless it was the mocking-bird that hung on the other side of the door, whistling his fluty notes out upon the breeze with maddening persistence.

Reading

A caged bird telling everyone to go away is how the novel of Edna Pontellier's confinement chooses to begin. The parrot's French phrase means "go away," but it is trapped repeating it behind bars, able only to annoy the people who own it. Chopin puts two birds by the door: one that mimics borrowed words nobody asked for, and a mockingbird pouring out real song "nobody understood." Long before Edna appears, we are shown the difference between making the expected noises and having a voice no one around you can read.

World Index

The Plot

Grand IsleLearning to SwimRobert LeavesBecoming HerselfThe Pigeon HouseThe Final Sea

The Cast

Edna PontellierRobert LebrunLéonce PontellierAdèle RatignolleMademoiselle ReiszRaoul PontellierEtienne PontellierMadame LebrunVictor LebrunAlphonse RatignolleDoctor MandeletColonel Pontellier / Edna's FatherAlcée ArobinThe Lady in BlackThe LoversJanetThe Farival TwinsThe Quadroon NurseMademoiselle FarivalVarious Grand Isle GuestsDomestic Servants and AttendantsNew Orleans Social Acquaintances

Locations

Carondelet StreetChênière CaminadaGrand IsleKlein’s HotelLebrun CottagesMademoiselle Reisz’s ApartmentThe Beach Bath-HousesThe Pigeon HouseThe Pontellier House in New OrleansThe Ratignolle HomeThe Sea / Gulf Shore

Objects of Note

Adèle Ratignolle's Sewing MaterialsChildren's GarmentsEdna's Sketches and Painting MaterialsEdna's Wedding RingLéonce's NewspaperMademoiselle Reisz's PianoMoney and Gifts from LéonceRobert's Final NoteRobert's LettersThe Caged ParrotThe White Sunshade

Core Concepts

Art vs. respectabilityCreole society and outsiderhoodDesire vs. possessionHouses as ownership and experimentLanguage, music, and the unsayableMotherhood vs. self-erasureSelfhood vs. social identityThe sea as freedom and danger

The Author's Pen

The Rings SparkledAn Unfamiliar OppressionNot a Mother WomanAdèle Ratignolle's CharmsSketching Madame RatignolleThe Voice of the SeaThe Inward LifeRunning Away From PrayersLet Mrs. Pontellier AlonePassions Without PicturesSwimming Far OutEdna Refuses to Come InAlone in the White BedRobert Going To MexicoSeeking Robert in His AbsenceI Would Not Give MyselfThe Unmarked RingI Simply Went OutDesire at the EaselBecoming HerselfDays of Happiness and DespairStrong Wings To SoarRobert’s Letter RefusedEdna After the RacesThe Colonel's AdviceGood Night DelayedThe Fever of the GameLeaving Esplanade StreetThe Pigeon HouseA Splendid TableArobin Leaves Edna To RestDay Before YesterdayThe Fairies Would Fix ItShe Was Again AloneI Give Myself Where I ChooseThink of the ChildrenYouth Given Up To IllusionsBecause I Love YouThe Voice of the Sea

Plot point 01

Grand Isle

Summering at a Creole resort, the restless wife and mother Edna Pontellier begins to sense a self beneath her assigned roles.

Objects of Note

Edna's Sketches and Painting Materials

With paint and paper Edna starts building a self her marriage never asked for.

The Cast

Robert Lebrun

Main · Lebrun family

A charming young man turns summer companionship into the image of a life Edna can imagine but not safely possess.

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The Awakening

Kate Chopin

The cast, locations, objects of note, core concepts, and selected passages in the Author’s Pen - at your own pace.

One of 127 classics in the Literah library

The Awakening World, as it plays on your phone

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