Robert does not want to do something wild and unacceptable to society.
ROBERT THE AWAKENING FREE
He says that “you were not free you were Leonce Pontellier’s wife” and that “ was demented, dreaming of wild, impossible things… men who had set their wives free” (108). The only person in society that begins to understand her, Robert, eventually decides that he must remain a member of society instead of staying with her. At the same time, she remains shut apart from society like the bird in the cage, and different ideas and feelings prevent her from communicating. Pontellier suffocates her and keeps her from being free. Like the bird, Edna feels trapped and believes that society has imprisoned her. The novel opens with the image of a bird, trapped and unable to communicate: “a green and yellow parrot, which hung in the cage outside the door… could speak a little Spanish, and also a language that nobody understood” (1). Pontellier left him to enter her room, the young man descended the steps and strolled over toward the croquet players, where, during the half-hour before dinner, he amused himself with the little Pontellier children, who were very fond of him.Early in the novel, while Edna attempts to escape from society’s strong grasp, birds emphasize her entanglement by forecasting her actions and monitor her development by reflecting her feelings. Robert supposed he was not, as there were a good many New Orleans club men over at Klein's. "I see Leonce isn't coming back," she said, with a glance in the direction whence her husband had disappeared. Pontellier folded the letter it was time for her to dress for the early dinner. Robert was interested, and wanted to know what manner of girls the sisters were, what the father was like, and how long the mother had been dead. She read a letter from her sister, who was away in the East, and who had engaged herself to be married. She was an American woman, with a small infusion of French which seemed to have been lost in dilution. Pontellier talked about her father's Mississippi plantation and her girlhood home in the old Kentucky bluegrass country. Now, flanked by its dozen or more cottages, which were always filled with exclusive visitors from the "Quartier Francais," it enabled Madame Lebrun to maintain the easy and comfortable existence which appeared to be her birthright.
In former times, before Robert could remember, "the house" had been a summer luxury of the Lebruns. He was spending his summer vacation, as he always did, with his mother at Grand Isle. Meanwhile he held on to his modest position in a mercantile house in New Orleans, where an equal familiarity with English, French and Spanish gave him no small value as a clerk and correspondent. He was always intending to go to Mexico, but some way never got there. Robert spoke of his intention to go to Mexico in the autumn, where fortune awaited him. Each was interested in what the other said. Pontellier talked a little about herself for the same reason. He was very young, and did not know any better. They chatted incessantly: about the things around them their amusing adventure out in the water-it had again assumed its entertaining aspect about the wind, the trees, the people who had gone to the Cheniere about the children playing croquet under the oaks, and the Farival twins, who were now performing the overture to "The Poet and the Peasant." Pontellier reached over for a palm-leaf fan that lay on the porch and began to fan herself, while Robert sent between his lips light puffs from his cigarette. His eyes gathered in and reflected the light and languor of the summer day. There rested no shadow of care upon his open countenance. A clean-shaved face made the resemblance more pronounced than it would otherwise have been. In coloring he was not unlike his companion. This seemed quite proper and natural on his part. Pontellier had presented him with, and he was saving it for his after-dinner smoke. He smoked cigarettes because he could not afford cigars, he said. Her face was captivating by reason of a certain frankness of expression and a contradictory subtle play of features. They were thick and almost horizontal, emphasizing the depth of her eyes. Her eyebrows were a shade darker than her hair. She had a way of turning them swiftly upon an object and holding them there as if lost in some inward maze of contemplation or thought. Pontellier's eyes were quick and bright they were a yellowish brown, about the color of her hair. awakening-and-selected-short-stories-ebook.htmlĭownload over 2,000 completely free ebooks at:
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