The Awakening’s narrator similarly demonstrates Léonce Pontellier’s power and ownership over Edna at its opening when they are on the beach: “’You are burnt beyond recognition,’ he added, looking at his wife as one looks at a valuable piece of personal property which has suffered some damage” (563). Edna then interestingly looks down at her hands to see that she is missing her wedding rings, showing that the rings stand as a reminder of Léonce’s ownership over her. Later in chapter III, readers begin to see the tension building up between Léonce and Edna, a situation that leaves her in tears even though “Such experiences as the foregoing were not uncommon in her married life” (566). This passage is significant in that something changes for …show more content…
However, her husband assures her, “You were not so very far, my dear; I was watching you,” (583). While he is doing so unknowingly, he nonetheless is diminishing Edna’s experience in the same way that John diminishes much of what his wife says in The Yellow Wallpaper. It also demonstrates the fundamental disconnection between them, while Léonce doesn’t seem to notice.
It is suggested in both stories that being in control of one’s own environment plays an important role in this quest for independence. However, this is something that marriage Victorian society will not offer women as demonstrated with John and Léonce’s attempts to remain in control over it. From the beginning of The Yellow Wallpaper, the narrator is unhappy with the room John has chosen for her to stay in. The room, ironically once a nursery, contains barred windows and a nailed down bed. But it is the hideous yellow wallpaper that she is the most unhappy with, first referring to it as “One of those sprawling flamboyant patterns committing every artistic sin” (793). Even though she expresses her unhappiness with the room and asks to switch rooms, “John would not hear of it” (793), making her feel silly for “giving way to such fancies” (794). Not allowing her to choose her own room/environment is another way that John exerts his …show more content…
Unlike the bedridden narrator in The Yellow Wallpaper, Edna finds herself with the freedom to buy a place of her own by selling her artwork, while her unknowing husband is on a business trip. This serves as a marker in her quest for independence and as she doesn’t wait nor care to hear her husband’s opinion, it is one of the most outspoken ways she defies him. Also dubbed “the pigeon house” (628), Edna for a moment feels free from the social expectations enforced on her as mother and wife when she has a space of her own. Feeling free from all that has constrained her, when she visits her children she is enabled to give “them all of herself” (635), something she admitted she couldn’t do before. However, this is short lived. As the pigeon house connotes, it is just another disguised cage that Edna can’t escape from. For when Léonce finds out, he expresses his disapproval and then does everything in his power to keep up appearances and prevent a scandal. By not allowing their community to believe that Edna has found a place of her own, it validates that Edna still can’t run away from her former life as a domesticated wife and mother, nor can she run away from her society without