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Purpose of the paper
To see Edna's awakening in the
relationship between Edna Pontellier
and Mademoiselle Reisz.
Thesis Statement
In the process of Edna's awakening, Mademoiselle Reisz plays an important role because her playing the piano has a great effect on Edna's art career; Mlle. Reisz supports and helps Edna with her relationship with Robert Lebrun; also Mlle. Reisz warns Edna that she must have "courageous soul" and "strong wings" to survive.
Women in the late 19th century
The Heroine Edna Pontellier
How does Edna react to Mlle. Reisz's music
and Madame Ratignolle's music?
Edna pictures when she listens to
Ratignolle's music.
"She waited for the material pictures which
she thought would gather and blaze before
her imagination. She waited in vain. She
saw no pictures of solitude, of hope, of
longing, or of despair. But the very
passions themselves were aroused within
her soul, swaying it, lashing it, as the
waves daily beat upon her splendid body.
She trembled, she was choking, and the
tears blinded her." (Chopin 47-48)
"she begins to perceive music according to its own
abstract nature, not in mental, sensual pictures."
---Melanie Dawson
Edna feels like a thousand
emotions have swept through her.
(Chopin 50)
What role dooes Mlle.Reisz play between
Edna and Robert?
Even an unattractive, disagreeable artist needs love,
and Mademoiselle Reisz seems to be cut off from any
possiblity of directly fulfilling that emotional need.
She therefore resorts to vicarious satisfaction through
Edna's intense emotional reactions."
(Skaggs 95)
The "courageous soul"
The "strong wings"
Economic Independence
The Ability to Bear Solitude
Even though Mlle.Reisz has the "courageous soul" and she is flying on her own sky, she lacks love, friends and warmth in her life.
(Skaggs 96)
The courage of Edna's finding her identity
and position as a woman in the world is of
great value to women's world.