The Awakening ( 3 Foils To Edna ) Essay, Research Paper

In The Awakening, Chopin sets up two characters chief characters and a subordinate female character to function as foils to Edna. The chief characters are Adele Ratignolle, & # 8220 ; the water under the bridge heroine of love affair & # 8221 ; ( 888 ) , and Mademoiselle Reisz, the instrumentalist who devoted her life to music, instead than a adult male. Edna falls someplace in between the two, but clearly recoils with disgust from the type of life her friend Adele leads: & # 8220 ; In short, Mrs. Pontellier was non a mother-woman. & # 8221 ; Adele Ratignolle and Mademoiselle Reisz, the two of import female rule characters, provide the two different individualities Edna associates with. Adele serves as the perfect & # 8220 ; mother-woman & # 8221 ; in The Awakening, being both married and pregnant, but Edna does non follow Adele & # 8217 ; s footfalls. For Edna, Adele appears unable to comprehend herself as an single homo being. She possesses no sense of herself beyond her function as married woman and female parent, and hence Adele exists merely in relation to her household, non in relation to herself or the universe. Edna desires individualism, and the individuality of a mother-woman does non supply that. In contrast to Adele Ratignolle, Mademoiselle Reisz offers Edna an option to the function of being yet another mother-woman. Mademoiselle Reisz has in copiousness the liberty that Adele wholly lacks. However, Reisz & # 8217 ; s life deficiencies love, while Adele abounds in it. Mademoiselle Re

isz’s loneliness makes clear that an adequate life cannot build altogether upon autonomy. Although she has a secure sense of her own individuality and autonomy, her life lacks love, friendship, or warmth. Later in the novel we are introduced to another character, her name is Mariequita. Mariequita is described as an exotic black-eyed Spanish girl, whom Edna looks upon with affectionate curiosity. Unlike the finely polished heroine, Mariequita walks on “broad and coarse” bare feet, which she does not “strive to hide”. This strikes Edna with a refreshing sense of admiration. To her, the girl’s soiled feet symbolize naked freedom, unconstrained by the apparel of civilization. Thus, Edna finds her rather beautiful. Mariequita is more like an unrefined version of Edna, that is, her instinctual self. At times, Mariequita ventures to express the thoughts that are secretly buried in Edna’s unconscious. For instance, she asks Robert whether Edna is his “sweetheart”. This considerably baffles the lovers, because of its straightforwardness. In fact, it takes almost the entire novel for Edna to mimic the girl’s courage by telling him that she cares for him. In the end, what Edna chooses for her identity is a combination of Adele Ratignolle and Mademoiselle Reisz and Mariequita. She chooses to be more honest in self-awareness than Adele, more dependent on human relationships than Reisz and remain more subdued than Mariequita.