Marriage was the process by which men gained total control over women. The author indicates that a marriage at that period of time was not always carefully planned but was rather a spontaneous and passionate act. For example, Edna’s “marriage to Leonce Pontellier was purely by accident, in this respect resembling many other marriages which masquerade at the decrees of fate.” (p.31) Edna married because she was emotionally ready for marriage and not because she loved Pontellier, and Chopin remarks that “It was in the midst of her secret great passion that she met him.” (p.31) Pontellier on the other hand, truly loved Edna. “He fell in love, as men are in habit of doing and pressed his suit with an earnestness and ardor which left nothing to be desired.” (p.31)
Pontellier courts Edna with great love and passion, trying to win her heart. When Edna decided to regain control of her life she had “a feeling of exultation” which “overtook her, as if some power of significant import had been given her to control the working of her body and her soul.” (p.43-44) Pushing her quest for independence to the limit “she grew daring and reckless, overestimating her strength. She wanted to swim far out, where no woman had swum before.” (p. 43-44)
Throughout “The Awakening” Edna longs to get away from her husband and attain total freedom of body and mind. She therefore, tries to escape her marriage through friends, music and love affairs. Reflecting on her life, Edna views her husband “like a person whom she married without love as an excuse.” (p.110). Furthermore, she looks at men as convincing and sly, who try to trap women with their love. In the end, as Edna feels that she has gained control of her life, she leans her head against the high-backed chair and spreads her arms like one who rules, who looks on, and who is free at last. She is free, free at last from the oppressiveness of her husband.
In Desiree’s Baby, Desiree’s life revolved around the house, symbolically confined within its walls. She was Armand’s proud possession as he was attracted by her beauty, which seemed typical of men of that time. They first met when Desiree was standing by a stone pillar and Armand Aubigny rode “by and seeing her there, had fallen in love with her. That was the way all the Aubignys fell in love, as if struck by a pistol shot.” (p204) The author gives the reader the impression that the men in Armand’s family were powerfully passionate and spontaneous. Therefore Armand’s falling in love was described as an “avalanche, or like a prairie fire or anything that drives headlong over all obstacles.”
Armand idolized Desiree but his attitude changed when she gave birth to a black skinned baby. He was arrogant and overconfident of himself and his heritage, and was sure that the fault was Desiree’s never questioning his own ancestry. By jumping to conclusions he never gave her a chance to explain herself to him. At the end, Desiree who had been overwhelmed and desperate drowned herself and her baby.
Kate Chopin developed her female characters as reaction to male attitudes. She used men, marriage and the rules by which women were confined to demonstrate her point. She described men as the ones who placed obstacles in women’s way, created social rules and put restrictions that confined their lives. These boundaries were at times physical but almost always emotional, and eliciting defiant behavior and reactions from the women involved. Placed by men, these limitations helped in shaping the female character of Kate Chopin’s heroines in her stories.