Mooooom

So, starting with Kate Chopin’s The Awakening you think it’s a pretty cool book. Not really sure about what is the premise and BAM! your main character gets a foil, the main character being Mrs. Pontellier and the foil being her friend Madame Ratignolle. Chopin, when introducing Madame Ratignolle, makes her seem like what is supposed to be perceived as the ideal woman: charming and focused on her children. However, Chopin, being a woman herself, is trying to make fun of this point of view and achieves in doing so by taking these characteristics and taking them to the point where it is absurd. A point where this is apparent is how Madame Ratignolle has her children clad in Eskimo-like apparel to protect them from “treacherous drafts coming down the chimneys and insidious currents of deadly cold finding their way through key-holes” (27). These kids are basically prepared for an arctic expedition only to stay at home probably drinking chocolate milk and playing the equivalent of a Nintendo in those days.

The entire absurdity makes one question whether this “ideal woman” is really what is best. This is where Mrs. Pontellier comes in. Is Madame Ratignolle’s spoiling really what is best for the children? Isn’t it better for their growth to learn to “pick themselves up, wipe the water out of their eyes and the sand out of their mouth, and go on playing” (25)? They can’t be dependent of their parents for much longer. Nevertheless, Mr. Pontellier insists that this is the wrong way to take care of children settling the positions of the characters that will last for the rest of the novella.