Close Reading

“There were days when she was very happy without knowing why. She was happy to be alive and breathing, when her whole being seemed to be one with the sunlight, the color, the odors, the luxuriant warmth of some perfect Southern day. She liked then to wander alone into strange and unfamiliar places. She discovered many a sunny, sleepy corner, fashioned to dream in. And she found it good to dream and to be alone and unmolested.

There were days when she was unhappy, she did not know why,--when it did not seem worth while to be glad or sorry, to be alive or dead; when life appeared to her like a grotesque pandemonium and humanity like worms struggling blindly toward inevitable annihilation. She could not work on such a day, nor weave fancies to stir her pulses and warm her blood.” (Chapter XIX, page 112)

Mrs. Pontelier describes what makes her happy first. She seems to be happy when her mood matches what surrounds her and when she is at peace with herself. It is important to notice that these moments of happiness were generally alone and with no one that could ruin her mood. From this we can infer that Mrs. Pontelier only feels happy when she gets to “wander alone into strange and unfamiliar places” meaning that a sense of independence lets her be at peace with herself. The use of imagery in this part with the sun and dreams, adds a tone of hope that things won’t always remain how she has been living them. These moments of happiness described by Mrs. Pontelier use natural elements like the sun to go with the mood she is trying to express. It gives the reader an idea of the happiness she feels but then like the sun, it lasts a little while before she begins to feel unhappy.

The next paragraph is opposite to the first. By showing these two very different paragraphs, Chopin makes the reader feel the mood change that Mrs. Pontelier goes through. Every woman knows these mood changes, one moment you are super happy and the next you are mad for a very stupid reason. Yet there is something deeper to Mrs. Ponteliers mood change. As if the realization of her life outweighs the good. The line about life being a “grotesque pandemonium” and humanity being like worms is really interesting. Even though her life doesn’t seem to be that active she describes it as a racket that makes unhappy. What is considered pandemonium to others to her is nothing. Then she chooses worms to describe humanity. Worms are blind normally and even though they move and squiggle a lot, they usually end up dyeing and not changing anything. No matter how much they struggle, their death will be inevitable and what is worse, they are blind to what they are struggling against. I believe the worms to her represent the society she lives in that works and works but never really reaching anything in the end. Somehow the idea of Mrs. Ponteliers deep mood swings makes me think that if she is so unhappy with the way things are at times, she will go to drastic measures not to feel this way and this sort of foreshadows any negative behaviors from her part.