Qué Pasa, Ohio State?

Rolando Rubalcava, PhD Candidate, EnglishGiovanni (Gino) Moretta, Undergraduate, Comparative Studies

Rolando (RR): I get asked this all the time: how does a Mexican working-class guy identify with a white privileged woman from the Creole South? It’s very much a “you-had-to-be-there” story. I read this at a pivotal time in my life, in the middle of a career change, while questions about life and art began occupying my thoughts. I started to see a story about an outlier, a person society never accepted, who saw art as an escape. Reading The Awakening made me question everything I knew about my upbringing, what was normal, and how the rules weren’t just from authority figures, but constructs that turned into prisons. Edna’s story gave me the courage to reach out and grasp what mattered to me, and how to be unapologetic about pursuing a passion. If you ever felt trapped by society, this story of liberation is for you.

Gino Moretta (GM): I came across Kate Chopin’s masterpiece of a novel at the age of 17, amid the re-awakening of my passion for art and literature. As a high school senior, I was intent on being college-educated, despite being a first-generation college student with no college savings to speak of. I would soon unknowingly be slapped in the face of a pandemic alongside the rest of the world. This was a book that kept me grounded in my goals and beliefs. It allowed me to be critical of the structures which created my own life chances, eventually leading me to explore Marxism personally, utilizing it as a tool in my academic and professional interests for literature as well. The Awakening taught me to calm my anxiety, appreciate nature, and evaluate the world’s capacity to create art. Most of all, it inspired me not to let anything stop me in the pursuit of my own art and passions.

What themes and/or moments resonated with you the most?

Gino: I resonate most with many of the principles of naturalism that this book introduced to me. Chopin having shaped the narrative to be critical towards social taboos and religious institutions, as well as marriage and fidelity, was very impactful to me, especially as Edna tastefully disregards those elements of her life in the pursuit of art. Stylistically, her careful diction and use of imagery are to this day some of the most artistically inspiring to me.

What are your thoughts on the ending?

Gino: I absolutely love the ending. In fact, any ending in a naturalist or romantic mode which ends in a presumed suicide is one which I am an advocate for. Make no mistake, I do not wish to glamorize suicide. Edna allows herself to be taken in by those waves in a selfish and indulgent way, but for all the right reasons. In a literary world, the ultimate form of rebellion against rigid societal structures is the taking of one’s own life. To fully commit to that action, which is then received by the public and heavily criticized, is very respectable and admirable to me as a person who identifies as a writer and creator myself.

Rolando: I’ve always associated the ocean at the end of the novel with the bounty of art and the life she never had a chance to live. Her swimming into the ocean is a symbolic removal from what oppressed her, embracing a new life beyond even her own comprehension. She was not giving up on life; she was taking it back.

What is your favorite quote from the text?

Rolando: “She grew daring and reckless, overestimating her strength. She wanted to swim far out, where no woman had swum before.”

Gino: “To be an artist includes much; One must possess many gifts, absolute gifts, which have not been acquired by one’s own effort. And, moreover, to succeed, the artist must possess the courageous soul.”

Like the ocean at the end of the novel, the possibilities of what The Awakening offers its readers are endless. For two guys to read this book and come away with a passion for art and rebelling against the rules speaks to its timelessness, finding its audience in anyone who ever felt ostracized by society. Read this book if you’re interested in tapping into the untapped(just stay away from large bodies of water for a while).

Woman standing in water at knee length