Thursday, February 4, 2016
Bad Relationship
In the time period that the novel takes place, women and men did not marry out of love. The fathers of the man and woman would negotiate a deal and make an arranged marriage without them even having a say in what was going to happen. In The Awakening, you can clearly see this by the way Mr. and Mrs. Pontellier act towards each other in just the first couple chapters. "'Well, send him about his business when he bores you, Edna," instructed her husband as he prepared to leave" (Chopin 3). When Robert decides to stay and chat with Mrs. Pontellier while Mr. Pontellier decides to leave, her husband doesn't seem to care that they were going to be left alone together and just tells her to send him away once she was done talking with him. This proves that the two do not have a strong relationship and it clearly is not out of love because if it was, he would have reacted out of jealousy and anger instead of boredom and carelessness.
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I agree, they don't seem to love each other at all. The only thing holding them together is the fact that they HAVE to be married. If it weren't for that, I don't think anything would suffice to save their relationship--not even their children.
ReplyDeleteI don't think love had anything to do with relationships at this time period. Hence, realism, not romanticism. I agree with you completely though.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you Kait, they weren't married because of love. Based on the time period,love was just like another word that didn't hold as much meaning in relationships between husband and wife. They most likely just married out money or property, so if they were lucky they would fall in love, or just be like the Pontelliers.
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