Historical and Cultural Background of The Awakening

1
Historical and Cultural Background of The
Awakening

• Feraco
• Search for Human Potential
• 23 February 2009

2
Originality Disclaimer

• This information was originally researched,
  compiled, and written by Neal Wyatt in 1995
• I have heavily modified Wyatts text, changing
  some of his language and inserting much of my
  own, but Wyatt deserves equal if not greater
  credit for this work.
• You can find this piece in its original form at
  http//www.vcu.edu/engweb/eng384/katetime.htm
• Some portions are also inspired by the Center for
  Learnings description of Creole culture.

3
On the Tipping Point of History

• The Awakening was first published just before the
  dawn of the twentieth century.
• It was a time of massive social upheaval, an era
  that witnessed tension and conflict between
  defenders of tradition and agitators for change
  and modernization.
• The countrys identity continued to shift as
  industrialization and urbanization advanced, and
  the wounds inflicted upon its society by the
  Civil War three decades earlier had not yet
  scarred over.

4
Everythings Changing

• At the same time, technology advanced by leaps
  and bounds.
• The Worlds Fair in Chicago heralded the rise of
  the Machine Age.
• Darwins theories of evolution were beginning to
  gain public acceptance, and the womens suffrage
  movement continued to make itself heard.
• These developments, along with many others,
  seemed to threaten the traditional American way
  of life and the fundamental philosophical
  assumptions supporting its social conventions.

5
Its the End of the World As We Know It

• Its unsurprising that American citizens had
  understandably mixed feelings about these
  developments as well as those gathering on the
  figurative horizon during the nineteenth
  centurys last decade.
• We can somewhat identify with their sentiments,
  since we, too, live in an age of rapid societal
  change.

6
Pushing the Boundaries of Imagination

• Think of the massive technological upgrades our
  society has incorporated into its daily routines
  over the past decade!
• We carry devices that would have made Star Treks
  Captain Kirk jealous.
• The computer Im using to write this lecture
  outstrips its predecessors capabilities by
  magnitudes of order it utilizes a faster
  processor, a larger hard drive, and an Internet
  browser (Firefox!) that would embarrass the
  AOL-reliant Americans living in 1999, let alone
  1989 or 1899!
• (Did anyone own a printer in 1979?)
• We take the incredible for granted because we
  forced the incredible to become the routine.

7
Do Not Disturb

• We are creatures of comfort, somewhat worshipful
  of tradition and somewhat fearful of the unknown.
  
• New eras excite us, once we realize that they
  wont destroy society as we know it
• Before accepting these changes, we tend to be
  suspicious of radical change.
• This essential part of our national character has
  not changed even after a centurys passage.
• Your lifestyle would be unrecognizable perhaps
  even unfathomable to one of Chopins
  contemporary Midwestern readers, just as their
  social conventions and expectations seem somewhat
  alien to us.

8
Stitched Together

• Nowhere were social conventions more alien than
  in Louisiana, a region perhaps more ill-suited
  for the coming changes to American ways of life
  than any other.
• The states culture was Frankensteinian,
  resurrected and stitched together from the
  constituent parts of American, Southern, and
  Creole ways of life.
• The aforementioned aftereffects of the Civil War
  reverberated particularly strongly here (and
  Chopins portrayal of Ednas father proves she
  recognized the phenomenon).

9
Understanding Creole Culture

• Yet while American and Southern cultures
  intermingled somewhat uneasily, the truth is that
  both sprung from a common ancestor and,
  although recently sundered, therefore shared more
  similarities than differences.
• Creole culture proved somewhat more problematic.
• It was a Catholic way of life in a largely
  Protestant country, which remains something of a
  social issue.
• For example, the major parties have nominated two
  Catholics for president since the countrys
  founding, and the lone Catholic president was
  assassinated before the end of his first term we
  havent nominated another since.

10
More Fun With Creoles!

• The Creoles were largely Caucasian, descendents
  of the French and Spaniards who originally
  settled in the state.
• Their culture was aristocratic, largely because
  their forebears had access to land and titles,
  and they were a particularly proud people.
• They kept exclusive and high-class company
• Note that the vacationers at the Lebruns place
  essentially compose the local social circle
• They deeply discouraged marrying against class
  boundaries, fearing it would dilute the purity
  of their blood.

11
Still More Fun With Creoles!

• Some Creole settlings isolated themselves from
  the larger American culture
• For example, the people populating the village
  that Kate Chopin lived in for several years
  considered themselves citizens of France and
  spoke only French.
• Finally, they seemed almost naturally inclined to
  love music.
• Its therefore unsurprising that Chopin utilizes
  music as a symbol of self-expression (a
  lobotomized one, in the case of the Farival
  twins) so frequently over the course of the
  novel.

12
Creole Attitudes Towards Women

• Creole women in particular were extremely
  conservative perhaps the most conservative
  group in the nation at the time.
• They were frank and open in discussing their
  marriages and children, but could do so because
  their very moral nature did not allow any doubt
  as to their chastity
• Chopin reflects this tendency in her portrayal of
  the various wives vacationing at Grand Isle.
• Chopin also shows that Creole women were
  committed as a group to their husbands and
  children.
• This commitment to fidelity was both deeply
  personal and deeply religious.
• Ive mentioned before that if Léonce is the
  perfect Creole husband, Adèle is the perfect
  Creole wife
• Perhaps this statement makes more sense in light
  of these cultural concerns.

13
Et tu, Napoleon?

• Finally, Louisiana possessed an idiosyncratic
  legal system.
• It was the only state in the nation to operate
  under a different code than the one outlined in
  the national constitution.
• The Louisiana Code modeled upon Frances
  archaic Napoleonic Code stated that a woman
  literally belonged to the man she married, which
  meant everything she possessed also now fell
  under his purview.
• Specifically, Article 1388 established the
  absolute control of the male over the family.
• In a particularly misogynistic passage, Article
  1124 equated married women with babies and the
  mentally ill in that all three were deemed
  incompetent to make a contract, let alone honor
  one (save the marriage contract).
• As a result, feminists and suffragettes faced
  particularly tough resistance in the state.

14
The TimesThey Are A-Changing

• Fortunately for them, other states proved more
  sympathetic to their cause and at any rate,
  technological and economic forces much larger
  than themselves helped bolster their arguments.
• The Industrial Revolution transformed
  handicrafts, which woman had always done in their
  homes, into a machine-powered, mass- produced
  industry.
• This meant that lower-class women could earn
  wages as factory workers.
• This was the beginning of their independence,
  even though the conditions were hazardous, the
  pay low, and their income was legally controlled
  by their husbands or fathers.

15
The Woes of the Wealthy

• Ironically, this placed middle and upper-class
  women at something of a disadvantage.
• They were still expected to stay at home as idle,
  decorative symbols of their husbands' wealth.
• They were, as Virginia Woolf termed it, expected
  to be angels in the house.
• They cared for their homes, husbands, and
  children.
• They played music, sang, or drew in order to
  enhance the charm of their homes and to reflect
  well on their husbands.
• They were also frequently pregnant, largely due
  to restrictions on birth control.
• Wives were possessions, cared for and displayed,
  who often brought a dowry or inherited wealth to
  a marriage.
• They were expected to subordinate their needs to
  their husband's wishes.
• Basically, they were expected to be Adèle.

16
Yes, The Times Are A-Changing

• The suffrage movement and the abolitionist
  movement grew apace during the Civil War.
• The abolitionists progress outstripped the
  suffragists after the Union emerged victorious
  from the war, with an 1868 amendment to the
  Constitution allowing the vote regardless of
  race, creed, or color but still codified
  discrimination against women at the ballot box.
• (That would not change for fifty years.)

17
Very, Very Slowly

• Over thirty years passed between the end of the
  Civil War and The Awakenings publication, and
  while the suffragettes had made strides over the
  course of the decades, they had not yet won their
  battle.
• Attitudes toward women were changing, but at a
  frustratingly slow rate traditionalists would
  have argued that views regarding womens proper
  place in society were shifting far too quickly.
• Kate Chopin was particularly fond of her
  independence, and she would have been intimately
  aware of these shifts readers who are equally
  aware of them will quickly spot the influence of
  clashing social traditions in the vibrantly
  realized world of The Awakening.

18
Harsh Words and Shocked Readers

• The novel spoke to some who sympathized with the
  womens movement, but it offended far more of its
  readers.
• The reception The Awakening received indicates
  the troubled social climate of the time.
• Contemporary critics were predominately hostile
  toward the subject matter, although they took
  time as I often do to praise the artistry of
  the writing.
• Still, newspapers and magazines of the day were
  filled with such comments as "it is not a healthy
  book," "it is sex fiction," "the purport of the
  story can hardly be described in language fit for
  publication," "it is an essentially vulgar
  story," and "it is unhealthy introspective and
  morbid."
• Chopin was hurt by such a response, both
  personally and as a writer.

19
In Closing

• As the century drew to a close, it was marked by
  many changes, personified by the rise of industry
  and the struggle for sexual equality in the face
  of those who would sacrifice progress in defense
  of tradition.
• Change was everywhere, and much of the population
  struggled to come to terms with those
  developments.
• In many ways The Awakening encapsulates this
  struggle, and Ednas problematic experiences
  speak to the painful process that was in store
  for the country and its women.