Rhino Ramblings

A recently awake Rhino prepping for the day

Welcome to the Joanne Book Corner, an occasional (ok, rare – since this is the first one) blog focused on a book or at least what the book means to me.  Today I am picking on An Awakening by Kate Chopin.  During the 1990’s, I happened upon this novel that was first published in 1899.  (Through the years I would keep trying to remember the name and would check the Greatest Novels of the 20^th Century, always forgetting it was actually from the 19^th Century – fortunately it is also on many greatest novels of all times list).  Now I rarely remember anything about a book I have read, but there were three important notes I took in and have held onto: 1) a specific quote (we will get to that shortly); 2) the general tone / theme; 3) how short the book was.  I recently was prodded into re-looking up the details and quotes and was right on the first two points – but not the third – the book is over 300 pages.  I must remember it as short because the narrative so absorbed me.

Ok – so let’s go to point 2):  while the theme spoke and still speaks to my journey through transness (and can be applied to many in the LGBTQIA+ community and all others finding their place in the world), it is a story of a woman who awakens (thus the title) to the desire and need to be herself regardless of the rules and restrictions of society.  The Wikipeida entry has the following summary:  The plot centers on Edna and her struggle between her increasingly unorthodox views on femininity and motherhood with the prevailing social attitudes of the turn-of-the-century American South. It is one of the earlier American novels that focuses on women’s issues without condescension. It is also widely seen as a landmark work of early feminism, generating a mixed reaction from contemporary readers and critics”.  While clearly not about being trans or gay, I felt such a kinship to Edna’s self- journey especially as I read this during the crux of my own life altering decisions and subsequent actions. I was in search of being myself in full just as Edna was searching for herself to be full.  Which takes us to my first point (a quote I have brought up in numerous times and ways to myself and others):  “I would give up the unessential; I would give up my money, I would give up my life for my children; but I wouldn’t give myself. I can’t make it more clear; it’s only something I am beginning to comprehend, which is revealing itself to me.” Wow – this hit me hard, and still does –  the process of concluding that in my interpretation – “I would give up everything… but I wouldn’t give up myself”.  At the time I read those words I was faced with the clear possibility that by transitioning I could lose my job, my family, my place in society and all else that defined me outwardly and worldly.  The decision I had to face echoed Edna’s – could I and should be fully me or would I compromise myself to continue to fit the world around me.  To bring the point fully home, is the children part – the dilemma (a word that actually goes to an entirely different book for a later book corner) of knowing “I would give up my life for my children; “ but even that does not take away the need to be oneself.  I remember feeling the anguish Edna faced in being woke – a word that should be celebrated – against the strictures of the “norm”.  Awakening, being woke, being alive and aware to oneself and others should be a holy goal (it is so perverse that so-called Christians who claim to follow Jesus (and his woke scripture) claim their religion teaches hatred and shunning to anyone not of their own self-image.

Another quote exemplifies how others viewed Edna’s (and as my avatar, my own) awakening: ““It sometimes entered Mr. Pontellier’s mind to wonder if his wife were not growing a little unbalanced mentally. He could see plainly that she was not herself. That is, he could not see that she was becoming herself and daily casting aside that fictitious self which we assume like a garment with which to appear before the world.”  Now remember – this is from 1899.  By all rights it should feel outdated but even as I re-read these and other quotes, I recognize the timeliness and urgency of addressing our relationships to society’s expectations vs our own selves.    <spoiler alert – skip to the next paragraph if you do not want to know how the book ends>.  While I correctly (again – always surprising when I remember details) remembered that Edna’s journey ended with her suicide, I also remembered it felt like the necessary conclusion.  I am not alone, as noted in the Wiki entry: “her death indicates self-possession rather than a retreat from a dilemma. She takes control over what she still has agency over: her body and her self”.  I do want to be careful here – I do not wish anyone seeing suicide as an appropriate ending; but within the fictional novel, there is symbolism and tone that makes the ending inevitable and both a commentary on Edna’s self awakening and society’s inability to support her.  I hope in our non-fictional world we can find and provide support as needed for each person’s journey of self-awakening such that the path leads to a full life and not the unfortunate end to Edna’s.

So I will end by admitting I have never re-read An Awakening and to be a proper book reviewer, I should. I will not guarantee what so struck me as an analogy of my struggles to awaken would hold up today.. But as I hope I conveyed, I consider this to be one of the seminal readings for me and, while not the short novel I thought it was, I encourage those looking for a 125 year old yet all too modern story of self-awareness to seek it out.

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