The Awakening

Alcée stays with Edna to help her as she locks up the big house. He walks her to her new home, and when they come in, Edna is surprised to see that Alcée filled it with flowers. Edna tells him that she is exhausted and he agrees to leave her and go home. As Edna says goodnight to him, he sits himself beside her and begins to stroke her neck and shoulders, until she becomes “supple to his gentle, seductive entreaties” (242). 

When Léonce receives Edna’s letter and finds out about her plans to move into her own little house, his biggest concern is how this change might look to his current and prospective clients. Fearing that they will think he cannot afford the large house, he writes a letter to architects and workers with instructions to renovate his mansion. He also places a notice in the paper announcing the renovations as well as the intention of their family to spend the summer abroad, while the remodeling is underway. Meanwhile, Edna begins to feel like a free woman. She travels to Iberville to visit her children and spends a week with them. Edna enjoys her time with the boys immensely and is regretful when she departs. She continues to think of their voices during her trip back to New Orleans, but once she reaches the city her children’s sounds “no longer echo in her soul” (248).

Adèle visits Edna in the small house. She asks questions about the dinner party and complains that Edna has neglected her. Adèle also comments on Edna’s impulsiveness, urging her to change her mind and not to live alone. Before leaving, Adèle asks Edna not to forget about her reputation, because there have been rumors about her affair with Alcée, and “his attentions alone are…enough to ruin a woman’s name” (251).

Left alone, Edna takes up her drawing, but various visitors interrupt her, so she decides to pay Mademoiselle Reisz a visit. Arriving at her home Edna realizes that Reisz is not there so Edna enters the apartment and waits for her there. She hears someone knocking on the door and is stunned to see that it’s Robert. He has been back in the city for two days. Edna now questions Reisz’s words about Robert’s love, thinking that if he had had feelings for her, he would have come to her right after he arrived. Edna asks why he did not write her letters as he had promised to do; he replies that he thought his letters would be of no interest to her. Edna says that this is just an excuse and leaves without waiting for Mademoiselle Reisz’s return.

Robert accompanies Edna as she walks home. She invites him to have dinner with her in the small house. It seems to her that her dreams are finally coming true. At first, Robert declines, offering excuses, but eventually says yes. As they wait for dinner, Robert discovers a photograph of Alcée that Edna claims she has kept for a sketch. He asks so many questions about the picture that Edna fears he might have heard the rumors about their affair. She quickly changes the subject to his time in Mexico and tells her that while there, he had worked non-stop, yet all that time he could think of only one thing: the time he spent on Grand Isle and the Chênière. When he asks Edna about her time in New Orleans, she echoes his response almost precisely. Robert says, “Mrs. Pontellier, you are cruel” (261). They sit in silence until the maid announces dinner.

As Edna and Robert sit down to dinner, they are no longer honest and intimate with one another but instead become stiff and ceremonious. After finishing their meal, they sit in the parlor. Edna questions Robert about the young Mexican girl who has embroidered a tobacco pouch for Robert. Alcée stops by with a message for Edna about a card party. As soon as he sees Robert, he begins to talk about the seductive beauty of Mexican girls. Robert does not hide his coldness towards Alcée and says that he needs to go. Edna remains with Alcée, who offers that they go out for a nighttime drive, but she refuses and sends him away, preferring to be alone. For the rest of the evening, she thinks about Robert. Jealousy fills her as she imagines him with a beautiful Mexican girl. Edna realizes that she feels more distant from him than when he was in Mexico.

The following morning, Edna wakes up with hope, convinced that she overreacted the night before. She assures herself that Robert will definitely visit her again that afternoon or evening. In the morning, she reads a letter from Raoul and a letter from Léonce, the latter of whom shares his plans to return in March to take her on a journey abroad. Alcée has also sent a note, declaring his devotion and his hope that Edna will return his affection. She writes a cheerful letter to her children and an evasive letter to Léonce, but decides not to respond to Alcée. Edna does not want to mislead her husband, but she cannot think of the future, because “she had abandoned herself to Fate and awaited the consequences with indifference” (271).

Days go by without a visit from Robert. Edna does not want to visit Mademoiselle Reisz or Madame Lebrun because she does not want to look as though she is seeking Robert’s company. Each morning she wakes up hopeful, and each night she goes to bed sad. One night, she accepts Alcée’s invitation to accompany him out to the lake. Afterward, they return home together and fall back into the physical intimacy that has become more frequent between them. As Edna is falling asleep that night, she no longer feels sad, but the next day she doesn’t wake up as hopeful as she has recently.