Relationships in the Awakening (Long blog)

In the Awakening, many relationships are formed and some eventually result broken. The first little relationship we have is between the married couple- Léonce Ponteillier and Edna Pointellier. We learn quickly that Edna is the clear protagonist of the novel and everything is based around her. Leonce, the husband, is a self absorbed man who thinks he can buy her wife anything she wants and she will just automatically fall in love with him. He thinks highly of himself and considers himself a good person. Edna begins to lose feelings when she meets a new man, which is the next relationship I am going to be talking about, Robert Lebrun. Robert kind of has a small role at the start but I noticed he has a flirty personality and he’s good around the kids which Edna loves. Madame (Adele) Ratigonolle and Edna are another unique relationship and they are really good friends. Just a little backstory on Madame Ratigonolle, she lives in New Orleans and is considered a Creole wife. A Creole wife is a wife who always no matter what, places their children and husband before them. That is one of the many things that differs in Adele and Edna’s relationship.It is odd because they are good friends but are total opposites of each other. It does raise tension in the relationship between her and Leonce, because he believes that Edna doesn’t favor the kids or him as much as he would like her too, which I guess you could say it partly true. Not about the kids but about him. Robert and Edna are hanging out with Adele when she starts to notice something. She feels like some sort of spell coming on. Frightened, Edna and Robert spray her like cologne so it goes away because they don’t want Adele finding out about them because she would freak out. The spell goes away and Adele suspects absolutely nothing. In chapter seven, Edna spills the beans about a lot of her past relationships not mentioning Robert though. The next relationship that takes place is in chapter 10 with Edna and Mademoiselle Reisz. This is another unique relationship because although they don’t really have much in common they are similar in some ways. For example, Mademoiselle Reisz is unmarried with no children and spends a lot of time playing the piano which she is very good at. She’s like a free independent woman which is why she kind of relates to Edna. It doesn’t seem like Edna is super free but she for sure is an independent woman. At this point Robert and Edna are starting to get a little more serious but Robert is acting weird because it seems like he was avoiding her a little bit in chapter 10. They hang out a little bit at the end but you can tell something is off. In chapter 11 the relationship between Leonce and Edna is slowly going off the rails. Edna refuses to join Leonce in the cottage and is really starting to distance herself from him. As she spends more time with Robert she really starts to lose interest in Leonce. Just when everything seemed perfect Robert suddenly departed leaving Edna. Confused and upset Edna doesn’t really know how to react because she was starting to pursue a relationship with him. Edna starts to have flashbacks because stuff like this has happened to her in the past ruining relationships. She then questions herself and feels like she is not good enough. One of the last relationships I am going to address is the relationship between madame Lebrun and Edna. It is a little odd considering this is Robert’s mother but her and Edna start to become friends. Edna tells the truth about Robert and how she likes him and she feels no guilt telling her that. This is one of the first people Edna has told and she really opens up about it telling her pretty much everything. Madame Lebrun doesn’t get mad or anything and just listens. Edna likes being able to talk to someone who knows so much about Robert. On her way to the beach after the little chat with Lebrun she sees Mademoiselle Reisz who gives her a bit of information. She says that Robert used to beat his brother for being jealous of an innocent relationship with a girl by the name of Mariequita. Edna gets a little bit of Robert’s dark side but I don’t think it really troubles her. She still misses Robert deeply and wants him to come back.