Faraci 3
Jacklyn Faraci
October 19, 2010
ENGL357: Southern Literature
Summary/Critique: Elfenbein
In Anna Shannon Elfenbein’s essay American Racial and Sexual Mythology, she asserts that, “Chopin violated the expectations of her genteel readers by showing that sexual passion is no respecter of class or caste boundaries” (293). She deems The Awakening a reverse of the typical racial conception of black and white female passion of the time period and claims, “the novel collapsed the traditional categories that had long segregated ‘dark’ women and ‘white’ women in American literature and advanced a new conception of female desire that was colorblind and democratic” (292). Elfenbein begins her argument with the characterization of Chopin’s heroine Edna, who does not understand the social order she has been placed into and as she veers from the traditional path of a privileged white woman, Elfenbein notes that Chopin begins to implicitly contrast Edna, not with just other white women, but significantly with women of color,
…the dark women… make it possible for Chopin in her depiction of Edna, whose character is so much at odds with conventional views of woman’s nature, to subvert literary stereotype and popular prejudice (293).
In order to facilitate her argument, Elfenbein goes into Chopin’s individual racist assumptions, “… the novel’s realistic treatment of Edna’s interaction with these women exposes the sex and caste prejudices of Creole society” and goes on to provide several textual implications of Edna’s unthinking reliance on status values and what this does to her identity later on in the novel. Elfenbein concludes her argument by analyzing Edna’s choice in suicide. She asserts that Edna’s powerlessness to change her sexual nature is due to her remaining bounded by her society’s race and class prejudices.
The inevitable consequence of her initial belief in her ability to venture further than other women of her class and of the caste, and of the class consciousness she shares with other privileged women, Edna’s suicide indicts both sexism and racism (298).
In these actions Elfenbein believes Chopin was able to “take her stand against the sexual stereotypes that deny women…not only the freedom and the opportunity, but even the ability to experience and express their diversity” (299).
Anna Shannon Elfenbein has a very interesting argument. Sexuality and race are both obvious themes to Kate Chopin’s novel, but I never thought to compare them together and I imagine this is why she has such a strong essay. Even if her argument was not necessarily believable, she provides her audience with plenty of textual evidence that supports her thesis. Her presentation of Edna’s comparison with the character Mariequita, “a peripheral but essential ‘dark’ woman character that Edna fatally misperceives” was very clear. Although all Edna could do was focus on Mariequita’s feet Elfenbein saw a larger importance in this juxtaposition of opposite characters. In her own words, this is done to “blur the racial categories established by men to control the sexuality if women and exposes the flawed vision of these two victims…” However, later on in the novel Edna comes across Mariequita once again and this time Edna is barefoot just like Mariequita once was. Elfenbein intriguingly finds the linkage of these two meetings significant because Edna, who assumed she was above Mariequita because of class status, has now become linked to” a class of women conventionally assumed to differ from privileged women” (297). I have never approved of the idea that Edna finally came to a complete ‘awakening’ before her death, therefore when Elfenbein makes her argument of Edna being forced to kill herself because she was too restricted by her privileged sex and race and not out of some selfless act of love, I am obligated to support her critique.
My main issue with Elfenbein’s argument was the overlooking of a majority of the other characters in the plot. I understand that her critique was based on the opposition of races in sexuality, but I believe the other characters’ racial and sexual values and choices had an equally strong impact on Edna’s choice of suicide in the end. Adele and Mademoiselle Reisz are only briefly mentioned in Elfenbein’s critique, “Edna is contrasted with other women… characters who occupy an unchanging space in the patriarchal society…these women present mutually exclusive options for Edna” (293). But I would argue that Adele and Reisz are more than just “mutually exclusive options.” They are two of the women who are constantly shaping Edna’s views and values throughout the novel. One is pulling her in the direction of traditional Catholic sexuality and the happiness of family life, while the other is nudging her towards a free spirit outlook on life and encouraging her to release all her inhibitions. If Edna can hardly perceive what she values individually, one cannot ignore the other forces that are constantly manipulating her. The same goes for the male characters in Edna’s life. She is so caught up in her imaginary lust for Alcee and Robert that she fails to comprehend what these men really value in race and sexuality, “Edna fails to see that her own status as an object of male possession is no different from that of women who serve as objects of male possession…” (297). Although Elfenbein makes a stable argument about what kind of impact characters of other races have on Edna, I think it is equally important to emphasize the impression every character made on Edna’s ideas of race and sexuality, because as the critic correctly states in her conclusion, “Edna’s suicide indicts both sexism and racism,” both being restrictions that the people around her would not allow her to escape (298).