Mademoiselle Reisz is presented to us as “…an unpleasant little woman, who is no longer young, who has fallen out with almost everyone…” She is not married, she has no children and has dedicated her life to her passion: music. The narrator also describes Mademoiselle Reisz as an ugly woman who has absolutely no taste in clothes. Some people even argued that she “always chose apartments under the roof…to discourage the approach of beggars, rowers, and visitors.” Secluded in her ever-changing penthouses, she attests to the likely socially enforced seclusion of any 19th-century woman who dared challenge the tolerable standard of female achievement. She is an unconventional woman and seems relatively insignificant when we start reading the novel.
Though remote and reserved in her communication with the other guests on the Grand Isle, Mademoiselle Reisz takes a liking to the novel’s heroine, Edna Pontellier, and becomes the most persuasive person upon her awakening. Her first meeting, when Mademoiselle Reisz plays the piano for Edna, she leaves Edna shaking and choking on tears. It was an experience Edna had never had, not even when her dear friend Adle Ratignolle played for her. “The opening chords … caused a strong tremor in Mrs. Pontellier’s spine” and her agitated physical reaction to playing the piano testifies to the capacity of her impending self-discovery. Although Mademoiselle Reisz is often asked to entertain people at gatherings with her expert piano playing, she also testifies that Edna is the only one of the guests who is truly touched and moved by music. Edna’s reaction to Mademoiselle Reisz’s music reflects the central theme of awakening in the novel.
Unlike Adle Ratignolle, who lives a socially accepted lifestyle, Mademoiselle Reisz is a living example of a completely self-sufficient woman, governed by her art and her passions, rather than society’s expectations. In a way, she is the representative of the feminist movement that began to emerge in the 1890s, but was still overshadowed by prevailing attitudes. Edna’s association with Adle suggests that she will abandon her rebellion and return to her marriage, the standard expected at the time the novel was written. However, her association with Mademoiselle Reisz suggests that she will lose everything except her art and her pride. In a way, both the author and her heroine will do something revolutionary and liberating for the women of the future.
Edna is apparently caught between two influences: a strong desire for individuality and autonomy, as exemplified by Mademoiselle Reisz, and the social conformity and comme il faut that she sees in Adle Ratignolle. He admires the figure of Madame Ratignolle, “Mrs. Pontellier liked to sit and look at her beautiful companion as if looking at a flawless Madonna”, yet the “musical tensions, well played”, by Mademoiselle Riesz’s piano art , “had a way of conjuring up images in his mind.” These “images” are the “same passions … aroused within her soul, rocking her, lashing her, as the waves daily beat upon her splendid body.”
From the beginning, the text points to the compelling relationship that Edna and Mademoiselle Reisz will experience. The story begins with the chattering of Madam Leburn’s parrot who speaks English, French and a bit of Spanish. She also speaks a “language no one understood, unless it was the nightingale that hung on the other side of the door…” Confined and misunderstood, the parrot represents Edna who speaks a language no one, not even her husband. . , friends or lovers-she understands her. It seems that all Edna needs is a nightingale, someone who can understand her strange language. Mademoiselle Reisz becomes this mockingbird for Edna, the songbird who instigates her freedom later in the novel. As the mockingbird, Mademoiselle Reisz is valued by society for her musical talent and Edna (as the parrot) for her physical appearance.
Their second meeting takes place when Mademoiselle Reisz seeks out Edna shortly after Robert’s departure for Mexico and strikes a chord by repeating “the thought that was always in Edna’s mind…the feeling that possessed her constantly.” She asks Edna, “Do you miss your friend a lot?” Mademoiselle Reisz is the only character in the novel who understands and encourages the love between Robert and Edna, and she acts as a true confidante to them.
Mademoiselle Reisz’s exchange with Edna by the coastal growers, a connection that continues upon her return home to New Orleans. Edna seeks the camaraderie of Mademoiselle Reisz as she begins to ardently seek personal independence from her. Mademoiselle Reisz, in turn, advises Edna that an artist must be brave, possess “a brave soul… that dares and defies.” Seeing how happy Mademoiselle Reisz is as a single artist inspires Edna to be more self-sufficient and pursue her desire to paint of her own. This relates to the meaning of the novel: a woman’s struggle for individuality while she is still married. Mademoiselle Reisz recognizes in Edna the same desire for escape and independence with which she has lived her own life. A woman who dedicates her life entirely to her art, Mademoiselle serves as an inspiration and role model for Edna, who continues her process of awakening and independence. As Edna feels estranged from her former confidant Adle, she grows closer to Mademoiselle Reisz, whom she begins to resemble.
It is during their first meeting in New Orleans that Mademoiselle plays “Isolde’s Song” for Edna, which foreshadows Edna’s final scene on the Grand Isle beach, where a bird with a broken wing sinisterly sinks in midair to die in the water. . The image of the bird follows as Mademoiselle Reisz admonishes Edna that “the bird that rises above the level of tradition and prejudice must have strong wings.” Through her relationship with the pianist, Edna increases her awareness of herself as a woman capable of passionate art and passionate love. While the two capabilities are interconnected, Mademoiselle Reisz serves to promote each of them specifically. There was nothing that soothed the confusion of Edna’s senses like a visit to Mademoiselle Reisz. She seems to “reach out to Edna’s spirit and set it free”.
It is Mademoiselle Reisz who made Edna realize that she is not leaving home because she is tired of taking care of it and feels no real connection to it as her own, but because the smaller house will allow her to be independent and free. Her instinct has led her to put aside the generosity of her husband and never again belong to someone other than herself. Also, it is with her help that Edna was able to admit her love for Robert and it is in her penthouse that she finally meets Robert when she returns from Mexico.
However, torn between the two worlds, represented by Adle Ratignolle and Mademoiselle Reisz, Edna could not accept her new reality. In the words of Elaine Showalter, “Both the author and her heroine seem to oscillate between two worlds, caught between conflicting definitions of femininity and creativity…” Mademoiselle Reisz dramatically expresses Chopin’s sense of independence and individuality in writing. . Her voice in the novel seems to speak for the author’s vision of art and the artist. In a way, in addition to helping to awaken the heroine, Mademoiselle Reisz is also instrumental in the literary awakening of her creator, Kate Chopin.
Mademoiselle Reisz is the woman Edna could have become had she lived to old age and remained independent of her husband and children. However, instead of running away somewhere and living on her own, perhaps supporting herself as an artist in the manner of Mademoiselle Reisz, Edna can only think about the reputation of her children and how they would be treated when she is gone. She was unwilling to define her position in the world because to do so would imply giving up the dream of total fulfillment. Thus, while Mademoiselle Reisz could control, create and command her work, Edna was at the mercy of hers. She felt that she could only be free if she ended her life. She knew that once Lonce got back, she would still tell him what to do. She also knew that she couldn’t leave her children in Iberville forever. Edna could never have the true freedom she desired with her children and her husband around her. She also knew that Robert wanted her to be the traditional Creole wife, and she is no different from Lonce. Edna realized this herself, but she knew she couldn’t live that way, no matter how much she loved the man. Due to her conversations with Reisz, Edna was able to see this for herself.
What Edna chooses for her identity is a combination of Adle Ratignolle and Mademoiselle Reisz, more honest in self-awareness than Adle and more reliant on human relationships than Reisz. She is no longer Edna, Lonce’s possession, Raoul and Tienne’s mother, Arobin’s plaything, Robert’s invincible deity, but a newborn being who, tragically, wants to live according to her own impracticable desires -neither masculine nor feminine-. Edna’s awakening has only brought with it the desire to break the boundaries of her life. Edna’s suicide is an awakening in itself. The symbolism of the bird offers a slightly different alternative: like a bird with a broken wing, Edna is a victim of fate and her society. Edna’s wings aren’t strong enough to overcome gravity; she is overwhelmed by the forces that society imposes on her. Edna takes a risk and tries to escape tradition. She can escape, but only in death, only by drowning in the water. Faced with a choice between a quick death on her own terms or the prospect of committing suicide anew every day, she chose a more merciful suicide.
Kate Chopin is often considered the first literary voice of the feminist movement, writing years before the beginning of the movement in the United States. In the time period in which Chopin wrote, “feminine” was the only description of woman that still existed. Unquestionably, The Awakening is a clear rupture, a rebellion from the female point of view. Edna’s awakening is also the author’s awakening to the fact that her bold choice of female self-discovery and self-sufficiency will be an outrage in her society. As a woman, Chopin’s status as a writer was severely limited by the expectations of a powerfully intolerant public. When she shattered all expectations by producing work that clearly transcended not only regionalism but also the established list of sentimental themes deemed suitable for women, the uproar was extreme. By giving her work an open ending in which only suicide is suggested, Chopin refuses to condemn Edna, which was another worrying factor for her contemporaries. Both Edna and her creator were “feminine”. Mademoiselle Reisz woke them up to the “feminist” way of thinking, but she couldn’t initiate them into the “feminine” world.