Summary: Chapter XIV
When Edna returns, Adèle reports that Edna’s younger son,
Etienne, has refused to go to bed. Edna takes him on her lap and
soothes him to sleep. Her friend also tells her that Léonce was
worried when Edna did not return from the Chênière after
mass, but once he was assured that Edna was merely resting at Madame
Antoine’s and that Madame Antoine’s son would see her home, he left
for the club on business. Adèle then departs for her own cottage,
hating to leave her husband alone. After Robert and Edna put Etienne
to bed, Robert bids her good night and Edna remarks that they have
been together all day. Robert leaves, and as she awaits Léonce’s
return, Edna recognizes, but cannot explain, the transformation
she has undergone during her stay at Grand Isle. Because she is
not tired herself, Edna assumes that Robert isn’t actually tired
either, and she wonders why he did not stay with her. She regrets
his departure and sings to herself the tune he had sung as they
crossed the bay to the Chênière—“Ah! Si tu savais
. . .” (“Ah! If only you knew”).
Analysis: Chapters X–XIV
Edna’s first swim constitutes one of the most important
steps in her process of transformation. It symbolizes her rebirth,
sexual awakening, and self-discovery. Edna has been unable to venture
into the water because she is afraid of abandoning herself to the
sea’s vast and isolating expanse. After the swim, Edna has gained
a new confidence in her own solitude.
When Edna descends into the water on the night of the
party, she appears like a “little tottering, stumbling, clutching
child, who . . . walks for the first time alone.” As she gains confidence
she announces to herself, “Think of the time I have lost splashing
about like a baby!” Using a metaphor of rebirth and childhood growth
to describe Edna’s metamorphosis, Chopin’s language in this passage presents
Edna as a child who has just outgrown infancy and is finally a full-fledged
toddler. Edna’s journey is not complete, however. Although she defies
societal expectations by venturing out alone, she also retains a
certain childlike fear of self-reliance, as evidenced in the terror
she feels when she realizes that she must depend only on herself
to make it back to shore.
While Edna’s achievement demonstrates her newfound wisdom and
courage, the language in which the event is narrated also refers to
society-wide assumptions about the helpless status of women. In many
ways, Victorian law treated women like dependent minors, granting
them their rights through their husbands as children would receive
their rights through their fathers. At this point in her awakening,
Edna’s rebellious will is not paired with the fortitude required to
withstand the consequences of defying social conventions, and the
catastrophe of her story lies in the fact that she never quite attains
this power. Thus, in addition to foreshadowing her eventual death
in the ocean, the episode where she first swims also foreshadows
the dangerous discrepancy between Edna’s desire (her desire to swim)
and her stamina (her inability to sustain the courage and strength
that propel her to swim out on her own).
Edna’s sense of independence and control is tested when
Léonce returns to the cottage and demands that she come inside with
him. Inspired by her earlier feats, Edna stands up to Léonce for
the first time in six years of marriage. She even reproaches him
for speaking to her with such assumed authority. Eventually, however,
the pressing reality of her situation sinks in, and physical exhaustion
deflates her raised spirit. As she goes inside to bed, we see the
conventional structure of relations between Léonce and his wife
restored. Léonce outlasts Edna’s defiance and his comment that he
will go to bed after he finishes his cigar proves that he can dictate
his own bedtime whereas Edna, childlike, cannot.
When Edna and Robert sit on the porch in silence after
she has defiantly surrendered herself to the sea, it is apparent
that the event has instilled in Edna a new sexual awareness. She
and Robert say nothing to one another, but, in the stillness, Edna
feels “the first-felt throbbings of desire.” Yet, despite their
growing passion for one another, Edna and Robert are unable to relax
and speak openly until they have escaped the grasp of society and
convention, as the day that Edna and Robert spend together on the
island of Chênière Caminada proves. The island,
and Madame Antoine’s cottage in particular, symbolizes freedom that
comes from self-isolation. Only when Robert and Edna are alone,
severed from reality and from their respective roles, can they express
themselves and indulge in their fantasy of being together. When
Edna wakes from her rest, the island seems changed. She giddily
entertains the idea that all the people on Grand Isle have disappeared
from earth—an idea that Robert is eager to accept. But once they
return to Grand Isle, Robert leaves Edna immediately, aware that
their fantasy is just that. He knows that he can no longer express
his feelings with the openness their isolation on the Chênière afforded
him. Edna, however, shows that she has not realized how forceful
societal conventions are. She cannot understand why Robert refuses
to stay with her upon their return to Grand Isle.
