Episode 20 – A Rationale for Podcasting as Teachers of Writing
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Prose and Context
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Episode 25 – Dangerously Immersed in Ourselves: Chopin’s “The Awakening”
Kate Chopin’s The Awakening—“Dangerously Immersed in Ourselves” By Karen E.B. Elliott I remember the first time I read this book. It was back in college was I was earning my B.A. at a liberal arts, secular school. I loved the novel. It intrigued me. Perhaps it was because I identified with the main character as much as I could at the time; however, I certainly wasn’t married yet. I had not been pregnant nor had children to care for. As a woman I was allowed to vote and express basically any opinion I had as a woman. But exactly like the main character, I was white; I was raised with privilege in zipcodes my parents chose carefully in which to live in order to guarantee me of sustaining that privilege. So in that case, I complete “got” Kate Chopin’s main character. I can recall my male professor’s interpretation of the ending (which I quickly came to learn is mostly everyone’s interpretation), and it just didn’t sit well with me. Even though I really liked him, I felt he was trying too hard—to please the women in the room—as if to say, “Hey ladies, I’m with you on this one.” He, like many of my professors, whether male or female, were self-proclaimed feminists. I, too, was a self-proclaimed feminist, but as a Christian. And that’s a hard one to explain or justify to the secular cynic or faithful Christ-follower. The interpretation of Edna’s apparent suicide (spoiler alert!) at the novel’s end appears to be read out of context in a frightening post-modern analysis of literature—where our feelings about the text (or any text) determine its meaning. This approach raises serious questions, and any self-proclaimed intellectual would raise his or her eyebrows when anyone looks at a text in this manner. Interestingly enough, however, this is exactly what Edna does with her own life. Although Chopin wrote this at the turn of the 20th century, her main character is incredibly post-modern, and more accurately, Edna is the post-modern middle to upper class American. Whether Christian or secular, Edna represents the typical American who already has it all—everything’s going for her—but she wants more. Despite her education and wealth, she is trapped, but not by the very oppressive, anti-woman Louisiana society in which she lives—she is trapped by her inability to bow down to anyone or anything larger than herself. It is evident as the reader travels through her consciousness that she has an acute sense of God and His presence; in fact, she admits that “the Holy Ghost [has] vouchsafed wisdom” within her youthful mind and soul, but she is seduced by her own desires to do whatever she wants, no matter who it hurts (13). Kate Chopin’s craft and technique is nothing short of inspiring. On the surface she appears to be a transcendentalist as Edna goes to the water and within nature to find herself—to find the answers of life—but she does no transcending of any kind; in fact, Chopin turns on her reader in not-so-subtle ways. Although at first, nature seems to “speak to the soul. The touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace,” and yet, when Edna enters the ocean with the intent to transcend, Chopin reminds the reader that the sea is not Edna’s native element; she had “attempted all summer to learn to swim. She had received instructions from both the men and women; in some instances even the children…A certain ungovernable dread hung about her when in the water, unless there was a hand nearby that might reach out and reassure her” (13; 27). Chopin furthers the futility of Edna’s efforts with her strong description of the ocean, and she intentionally recycles phrases—reuses them—particularly at the novel’s end so that her reader will be reminded of what’s really happening to her character. Like the natural elements, Chopin seduces her reader and invites them to look at nature’s veneer. She describes the sea as swelling “lazily in broad billows,
Episode 24 – Celebrating National Library Week with our Local Library
Transcript unavailable for this episode.
Episode 23 – The Single-Point Rubric
Transcript unavailable for this episode. Danah Hashem's Edutopia article on the single point rubric can be accessed here.