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"Abysses of solitude": Acting naturally in Vogue and The Awakening
College Literature, Fall 1998 by Harmon, Charles
As I have pointed out, however, although her narrative voice is eventually dominated by her attempt to transcribe nature's voice, Chopin still presents the disparities of Edna's dual life with a great deal of irony. Yet even this aspect of the novelist's narrative strategy was anticipated by the visual conventions of Vogue. In two illustrations from 1895, male and female figures strike similar postures and make wry, Chopinesque remarks upon gender relations (See Figures 3 and 4). In both instances, as in the picture of "Rose," the woman is in the foreground; but while "Rose" is absorbed in a fragment of nature which she holds in her hand, the female figures in these two illustrations are very selfaware. In "He Almost Thinks He Will-Ask Her to Dance!" the young woman regards the viewer with slyness and amusement. There is little evidence that she is deeply affected by being the object of a man's supercilious inspection. She is just playing along with a convention she considers absurd. In so doing, she invites the viewer to reflect with her upon the quaint stupidity of gender performances that require women to appear unconscious of the effects they strive to produce. This picture plays with but does not directly question the conventions of naturalization that are displayed in such illustrations as "Rose," "The Light of a Day that is Dead," as well as in Chopin's representation of Edna's sensitivity to "the voice of the sea." An ironic outlook on gender conventions comports easily (if paradoxically) with the de facto support of such conventions.
Similarly, in The Awakening a great deal of indulgent humor is died Inn's friend Add Ratignolle, who is contrasted with Edna through her generally earnest belief in the social function of what Chopin calls the role of the "motherwoman." But like the model in "He Almost Thinks He Will-Ask Her to Dance!" Adele is able both to fulfill her social function of naturalization and to ironically distance herself from it. During her walk with Edna by the seashore, Adele surprises Edna with her warmth and lack of feminine competitiveness. The inadequately-mothered Edna is "not accustomed to an outward and spoken expression of affection, either in herself or in others" (1969, 897), so Adele's gestures of kindness confuse her. Accustomed to being isolated by the male gaze and regarding other women as rivals for masculine esteem, Edna cannot understand how Adele can take the social role of the beautiful woman both more and less seriously than she herself does. For while Edna is alternately fiercely independent and thoughtlessly manipulative, Ad&le adheres strictly to the conventions of the mother-woman even as, from time to time, she gives herself a holiday from those conventions. Not only does Adele dwell temporarily with Edna in Showalter's "wild zone"-just for the fun of it, she is not above entertaining herself by overplaying her role, for instance, by pretending to swoon. By making Robert Lebrun ridiculously rush to her aid, Adele ensures (much in the manner of Vogue) that traditional gender roles are both reinforced and parodied-indeed, enforced precisely through parody. In many instances, however, the irony that both Chopin and Vogue directed toward the naturalizing role of the beautiful woman was considerably harsher than that used by Adele Ratignolle.
