Sucky Goodbyes

It takes someone to leave, for a person to really see what they meant to them. It’s not that they were ungrateful to the person while they were with them, but it weighs heavily on them when the person is truly gone. It’s as if everything that person did for you were highlighted further because they won’t be there to continue doing this for you. People become dependent on others for simple things, like carrying their books, or really complicated ones like actually making the person feel more than what they are used to, without noticing. Such is the case in The Awakening between Robert and Mrs. Pontelier, she became really close to Robert and with his departure she saw what he really meant to her.

In a normal dinner, Mrs. Pontelier gets news that Robert is to leave to Mexico that same evening. She had just spent the whole day with Robert and he never mentioned anything of this sort. The news come as a shock and her only reaction is to seem busy with housework and her children. Already knowing that Mrs.Pontelier isn’t that devoted to her “womanly duties”, the reader can infer that she in only doing this to keep her mind off the fact that her confidant is leaving. Robert is not just a friend to Mrs. Pontelier, he treats her in a way that no other man has ever treated her and she acknowledges this. One could compare their relationship to that of two teenagers falling in love since the chemistry between these two characters is undeniable.

Mrs. Pontelier seems to want to avoid dealing with this issue as long as possible. When asked to sit with Mrs. Lebrun until Robert leaves she fakes being sick and when Mrs. Ratignolle comes by to check on her, she does not accompany her back to be with the others. The news are a shock to Mrs. Pontelier and she does not really confront the issue until Robert himself comes to bid her goodbye. They have a very superficial conversation about the heat and when he would be back but you can tell that Robert is holding back what he really wants to say in page 89 when he stops himself and abruptly begins to tell her goodbye. Not only is this goodbye distant and as Mrs. Pontelier describes it “unlike Robert”, it is quick and one could say it is the worst goodbye a person could give.

What is really interesting about this goodbye is Mrs. Ponteliers thoughts after Robert departs:

“The present alone was significant; was hers, to torture her as it was doing then with the biting conviction that she had lost that which she had held, that she had been denied that which her impassioned, newly awakened being demanded.” (Chapter XV, page 90)

With this, Chopin is implying that her present is more significant than both her past and future because, while she can’t change the past, her present might change the future. She rather not worry about the future but think about the present because it is torturing her in a way that only understandable to her because what just happened is meaningful to her. This person who had been making her feel so much even if she didn’t notice it, abruptly leaves and it is now that she understands what it is that is making her come alive or “awakened”.

This ties back to the idea that we don’t really appreciate something until it is gone. She describes herself as having “symptoms of infatuation” which she had felt in her youth and hadn’t felt them since. To put it in a seemingly cliché form, she is feeling butterflies. Mrs. Pontelier doesn’t question her past, doesn’t want to question her future and like she said in the line above, it is the present that is making her notice that which she had not seen. Robert and her are obviously attracted to each other but she had to hold all of this in and that is what ultimately makes her want to be with him, that infatuating feeling that she doesn’t feel with any other man, and losing that feeling, is one of the hardest things anyone could go through.