A lot of the examples of "the force of habit" in the reading were self-inflicted on Edna. Some of the habits she followed through with were adhering to a distant and "proper" lifestyle: she had the key to the bath-house even though they weren't planning on bathing and she "instinctively" tells Mrs. Ratignolle that she's not thinking of anything when she actually was. She admitted that her sister and her fought habitually, which didn't exactly lead to a nurturing home life. These habits affect her place in society because they are things that are proper or things that have shaped her personality. The habit that men have to fall in love affects them and affects their wives, as it affected Edna's by basically stealing away her happiness. One habit that affects her and the people around her is her habit to give up at trying to swim. After the dinner when she is enthralled with swimming, all the men take pride and responsibility for her success even though it was an intensely personal victory. I think Edna has to force herself to dismantle her habits as part of her awakening, like she dismantled her inability to swim.
Edna has lived her entire life through habits, so it seems. She doesn't think before she does something because she doesn't see the need for it. When she starts noticeably breaking these habits, you see that she is opening up her mind more and more to just plain thought. Her being deep in thought has made her come out of habit more and more. I think we will see a huge change of habit for this woman in the near future.
During these chapters you finally see Edna break from her habits, and think before she does anything. Edna, in the beginning of chapter 16, accepts chocolates from Mademoiselle Reisz “She habitually ate chocolates for their sustaining quality” (56). She still has the mind set of a woman who always does as she’s told, and doesn’t think about her actions, just does them because they’re what’s expected of her. Later she finally breaks free from her habits, “Mrs. Pontellier did not wear her usual Tuesday reception gown; she was in ordinary dress” (59). It is the first time that you clearly see that she purposely didn’t do what was expected of her. Instead of staying home, and talking to guests, she left and did what she wanted. She is slowly breaking her habits and doing what she wants to, not what society wants. After she throws the glass on the floor and stomps on her ring, you see Edna go back to a habit that she has been trying to break. “ Edna held out her hand, taking the ring, slipped it upon her finger”(62). Edna does the same thing in chapter 1-5, when she gets back from the beach she holds out her hand and Leonce gives her the wedding ring. Edna struggles with her habits, and I believe when she tries to crush her ring, she feels as if she is crushing her habits, willing them to go away. In chapter 19, Edna truly comes out and does as she pleases. Like Haley said before Edna’s habits were adhering to a distant and "proper" lifestyle, now she is breaking those habits and being herself. “She made no ineffectual efforts to conduct her household en bonne menagere, going and coming as it suited her fancy… ‘Oh! I don’t know. Let me alone; you bother me [Edna says to Mr. Pontellier]”(67). Edna is now painting when she wants to, speaking in any tone she pleases, and doesn’t take care of the children, or household. She is completely breaking her mindless habits and now does things after thinking about them.
When Mr. Pontellier returns from the beach, he finds Edna still in her hammock on the porch. He demands that she go inside with him; when she refuses HE joins HER outside and attempts to coax her in with an offer of wine. Edna refuses to go inside until she wants to; when she does, she invites Mr. Pontellier in. He childishly refuses. This role reversal is a major turning point in Edna's life. Instead of obeying her husband out of habit, like she has before (waking up to check on her children even though she knows she doesn't have to), Edna does what she wants - and reveals Mr. Pontellier's dependence on her (or maybe just her subservience, in order to "feel like a man"). He won't go inside without her, but is that because he is needy or because he needs to feel like he is in charge?
Edna continues to think about her own actions and catch herself in her habits when she calls Robert up to go to church - normally he just shows up. In addition, when she leaves church, she is breaking another habit that she acknowledged to Ratignolle earlier in the book - her "religious observance".
However, Edna has not fully broken out of her old self. Chapter XV begins with, "When Edna entered the dining-room one evening a little late, as was her habit," (47). She is beginning to change, but we can see that change will not happen all at once. When Edna finds out that Robert is leaving she is devastated, but the incident makes her realize that she has changed and is beginning to fall in love with Robert. He seems to have realized this too, and planned his trip to Mexico in response.
Mlle. Reisz quickly reveals to us her opinion of the 'proper' ladies in society when she says to Edna "I sometimes though: 'She will never come. She promised as those women in society always do, without meaning it. She will not come.'..." (73) Mlle. Reisz is pointing out that it's a habit in that time period for most women to agree just to be polite or because, like Mr. Pontellier, their husbands expect them too have have and except all social gatherings/invitations. And the fact that Edna did (finally) come to visit Edna seems to say that Edna is not following 'habit'--at least were the disagreeable Mlle. Reisz is concerned.
Edna is also not following the social gathering habit--or 'Tuesdays at Home' as Mr. Pontellier would say... "...That's the trouble...she hasn't been associating with any one. She has abandoned her Tuesdays at home, has thrown over all her acquaintances and goes tramping about by herself, moping in the street-cars, getting in after dark. I tell you she's peculiar, I don't like it..." (77) She's abandoned the habits Mr. Pontellier expects of her and instead has been doing her own thing and doing whatever she feels like when she feels like it. Which Mr. Pontellier doesn't like at all, so much that he has to go their family doctor for advice on how to deal with Edna because his suggesting that Edna go to her sisters upcoming wedding and stay with her family didn't work at all. She just said "a wedding is one of the most lamentable spectacles on earth." (78) Which Mr. Pontellier adds is a "nice thing for a woman to say to her husband!" (78) At the time it's expected for women to get married, an unmarried woman like Mlle. Reisz goes against the societal habit and Edna's saying that a wedding is the worth thing ever also goes against that habit.
The doctor also shows another habit of the time when he says "...Most women are moody and whimsical. This is some passing whim of your wife, due to some cause or causes which you and I needn't try to fathom. But it will pass happil over, especially if you let her alone." (78) The men at that time assumed that a woman's concerns or issues didn't really make any sense and that they weren't important enough to pay attention too unless she needed to be institutionalized.
When the doctor comes to visit on Thursday as he an Mr. Pontellier arranged Edna is behaving perfectly 'normal'--or at least how society expects. For some reason Edna and her father are bonding and she is fulfilling the 'normal' daughter role of the time. But if you compare how she's treating her father to Mr. Pontellier, there are some parallels. Like when Edna and her father are talking about the horse races and Mr. Pontellier talks about how his disapproves of them, not only does he annoy his father-in-law, but Edna takes her fathers side over her husbands. And the fact that Edna is actually sharing/discussing an interest with her father parallels how she doesn't share interests with Mr. Pontellier at all.
(it was too long to fit so here is the rest for Ch. 21 -25)
But when Edna's father brings up her sister's wedding and Edna's refusal to go to the wedding she is once again going against habit and her father tries to make her feel guilty for it and fails. Mr. Pontellier tries to apologize to his father-in-law for Edna's behavior which seems to be a reoccurring habit.
Surprisingly when Mr. Pontellier leaves to go to the wedding, Edna is uncharacteristically everything Mme. Ratignolle is and what Mr. Pontellier wishes/wants her to be. "She grew melting and affectionate , remembering his many acts of consideration and his repeated expressions of ardent attachment. She was solicitous of his health and his welfare. She bustled around, looking after his clothing, thinking about heavy underwear, quite as Mme. Ratignolle would have done under similar circumstances. She cried when he went away, calling him her dear, good friend, and she was quite certain she would grow lonely before too long and go to join him in New York." (84) Those feelings don't last long and Edna quickly returns to the moody woman who does whatever she wants--including spending lots of time at the horse races with the infamous Alcee.
Edna is shown to be very moved by habits, and it seems that she's very much used to living through habit. However, in a few circumstances, she's beginning to realize this, and intends to break them, even the smallest. When Mme. Ratignolle just curiously asks Edna, in a way that seems like she's making small talk, what's on her mind, Edna's first instinct is to just say nothing at all and kind of brush things off. But she realizes this, and catches herself before falling into the habitual pattern. So she goes on in great detail about exactly what she was so intensely thinking about, and Ratignolle even admitted she wasn't expecting a lengthy response. "Oh! never mind! I am not quite so exacting," [Chopin, 17] (Maybe it's a habit to say 'nothing' and for the person asking to -expect- this response. A habit to say nothing, and a habit for the person asking to receive a 'nothing' or 'not much') I felt that Edna was more than just breaking the habit, she felt determined to respond in a way far from usual and habitual.
chapters 16-20: These chapters show Edna growing away from her habits. There are interesting juxtapositions throughout these chapters regarding habit. In the beginning of chapter 16 we read about Ms. Reisz's Chocolate habit opposed to the loss of obeying habits in Edna. There is a passage in chapter 17 where First Edna goes against habit and finishes her dinner without her husband and then she breaks some stuff up stairs and takes off her wedding rings. In this same passage her maid picks up and gives Edna her ring back, Edna puts it back on her finger. Her wedding ring is a significant link to her role in the society she lives in. The fact that she puts it back on is an indicator that she hasn't fully liberated herself from her role yet.
As the book draws to a close, we see the dismantled wreckage of her habits, old and new, after the return of Robert. She doesn't even get fully dressed to eat breakfast. She even starts to break the habit of Alcee by discarding the letter he sent to her, though it's not totally gone yet because she still goes out with him for one night while waiting around for Robert. Even though she's got some new habits filling in the space where her old ones were, these habits are less constricting: it's become a passing habit of her's to stop by the park while out walking, but this habit isn't conforming to any larger societal constraint. When she's with Robert, she breaks her habit of being reserved around him and finally tells him how she feels. I'm tempted to say that when she rushes off to be with Mme. Ratignolle, she's slipping back into old habits. Ratignolle had become a much smaller part of her life, because Ratignolle was slipping into a powerful mothering state as she was readying to have her baby and Edna was going the complete opposite way and setting herself free. So, her running back to help Ratignolle is a symbol for the ties that society still has on her, and it causes her to lose Robert. But without him leaving, she would have slipped back into the habit of living with a man. With him gone she is forced to break the habit of her whole cycle of relationships. She breaks the habit of only going to the island in winter. And at the very end of the book when she's wading in the ocean she is quite literally distancing herself as far as she can from her habits. She looks back and remembers the habit of being scared of the ocean (of freedom, of breaking from society) and keeps going.
Definitely by leaving her house and moving out on her own, Edna is breaking her habit of dependence on Leonce and her following societal norms, and it is sort of a huge and final step. Not only is she seeking out her independence by moving out, she is also working hard physically and in labor as cleaning out the old house and preparing her new house.
When Edna is reflecting back on kissing Alcee in Chpt. 28, she describes it as if, "a mist had been lifted from her eyes" (Chopin 99). I think it's very important to examine the way she feels about it, because she says she has a feeling she is unaccustomed to. This is also the breaking of habits, it's unknown and so upsetting to her that she cries. I think her tears in this moment are definitely tears of a confused and lost woman, she is not doing things the only way she ever knew how to do things and t is completely disarming to her.
In these few chapters is when Edna really starts to break her habits. The first place we truly see this is when Edna, when asked what she was thinking, replies, "nothing," and then decides that, being an inaccurate answer, she aught to go into further depth of consciousness and really be cognizant of her thoughts. She also brings up how although she had once enjoyed and been dedicated to her religion, she now did anything relating to it only out of habit. After learning to swim, a very liberating moment for her, she speaks to her husband. She doesn't silently acknowledge him as usual, but tries to have a real conversation about her feelings. He doesn't respond in a way satisfactory to her, and she is tired, so she begins to walk home alone. Soon Robert joins her and she again attempts to express her feelings, which he gladly responds to. Edna breaks habits of conservative-ness all throughout this section. The main transformation we see is her beginning to change from introverted to extroverted.
A lot of the examples of "the force of habit" in the reading were self-inflicted on Edna. Some of the habits she followed through with were adhering to a distant and "proper" lifestyle: she had the key to the bath-house even though they weren't planning on bathing and she "instinctively" tells Mrs. Ratignolle that she's not thinking of anything when she actually was. She admitted that her sister and her fought habitually, which didn't exactly lead to a nurturing home life. These habits affect her place in society because they are things that are proper or things that have shaped her personality. The habit that men have to fall in love affects them and affects their wives, as it affected Edna's by basically stealing away her happiness. One habit that affects her and the people around her is her habit to give up at trying to swim. After the dinner when she is enthralled with swimming, all the men take pride and responsibility for her success even though it was an intensely personal victory.
ReplyDeleteI think Edna has to force herself to dismantle her habits as part of her awakening, like she dismantled her inability to swim.
Edna has lived her entire life through habits, so it seems. She doesn't think before she does something because she doesn't see the need for it. When she starts noticeably breaking these habits, you see that she is opening up her mind more and more to just plain thought. Her being deep in thought has made her come out of habit more and more. I think we will see a huge change of habit for this woman in the near future.
ReplyDeleteChapter 16-20
ReplyDeleteDuring these chapters you finally see Edna break from her habits, and think before she does anything. Edna, in the beginning of chapter 16, accepts chocolates from Mademoiselle Reisz “She habitually ate chocolates for their sustaining quality” (56). She still has the mind set of a woman who always does as she’s told, and doesn’t think about her actions, just does them because they’re what’s expected of her. Later she finally breaks free from her habits, “Mrs. Pontellier did not wear her usual Tuesday reception gown; she was in ordinary dress” (59). It is the first time that you clearly see that she purposely didn’t do what was expected of her. Instead of staying home, and talking to guests, she left and did what she wanted. She is slowly breaking her habits and doing what she wants to, not what society wants.
After she throws the glass on the floor and stomps on her ring, you see Edna go back to a habit that she has been trying to break. “ Edna held out her hand, taking the ring, slipped it upon her finger”(62). Edna does the same thing in chapter 1-5, when she gets back from the beach she holds out her hand and Leonce gives her the wedding ring. Edna struggles with her habits, and I believe when she tries to crush her ring, she feels as if she is crushing her habits, willing them to go away.
In chapter 19, Edna truly comes out and does as she pleases. Like Haley said before Edna’s habits were adhering to a distant and "proper" lifestyle, now she is breaking those habits and being herself. “She made no ineffectual efforts to conduct her household en bonne menagere, going and coming as it suited her fancy… ‘Oh! I don’t know. Let me alone; you bother me [Edna says to Mr. Pontellier]”(67). Edna is now painting when she wants to, speaking in any tone she pleases, and doesn’t take care of the children, or household. She is completely breaking her mindless habits and now does things after thinking about them.
~ Tesnime Selmane
Chapters 11-15
ReplyDeleteWhen Mr. Pontellier returns from the beach, he finds Edna still in her hammock on the porch. He demands that she go inside with him; when she refuses HE joins HER outside and attempts to coax her in with an offer of wine. Edna refuses to go inside until she wants to; when she does, she invites Mr. Pontellier in. He childishly refuses. This role reversal is a major turning point in Edna's life. Instead of obeying her husband out of habit, like she has before (waking up to check on her children even though she knows she doesn't have to), Edna does what she wants - and reveals Mr. Pontellier's dependence on her (or maybe just her subservience, in order to "feel like a man"). He won't go inside without her, but is that because he is needy or because he needs to feel like he is in charge?
Edna continues to think about her own actions and catch herself in her habits when she calls Robert up to go to church - normally he just shows up. In addition, when she leaves church, she is breaking another habit that she acknowledged to Ratignolle earlier in the book - her "religious observance".
However, Edna has not fully broken out of her old self. Chapter XV begins with, "When Edna entered the dining-room one evening a little late, as was her habit," (47). She is beginning to change, but we can see that change will not happen all at once. When Edna finds out that Robert is leaving she is devastated, but the incident makes her realize that she has changed and is beginning to fall in love with Robert. He seems to have realized this too, and planned his trip to Mexico in response.
Ch. 21 - 25
ReplyDeleteMlle. Reisz quickly reveals to us her opinion of the 'proper' ladies in society when she says to Edna "I sometimes though: 'She will never come. She promised as those women in society always do, without meaning it. She will not come.'..." (73) Mlle. Reisz is pointing out that it's a habit in that time period for most women to agree just to be polite or because, like Mr. Pontellier, their husbands expect them too have have and except all social gatherings/invitations. And the fact that Edna did (finally) come to visit Edna seems to say that Edna is not following 'habit'--at least were the disagreeable Mlle. Reisz is concerned.
Edna is also not following the social gathering habit--or 'Tuesdays at Home' as Mr. Pontellier would say... "...That's the trouble...she hasn't been associating with any one. She has abandoned her Tuesdays at home, has thrown over all her acquaintances and goes tramping about by herself, moping in the street-cars, getting in after dark. I tell you she's peculiar, I don't like it..." (77) She's abandoned the habits Mr. Pontellier expects of her and instead has been doing her own thing and doing whatever she feels like when she feels like it. Which Mr. Pontellier doesn't like at all, so much that he has to go their family doctor for advice on how to deal with Edna because his suggesting that Edna go to her sisters upcoming wedding and stay with her family didn't work at all. She just said "a wedding is one of the most lamentable spectacles on earth." (78) Which Mr. Pontellier adds is a "nice thing for a woman to say to her husband!" (78) At the time it's expected for women to get married, an unmarried woman like Mlle. Reisz goes against the societal habit and Edna's saying that a wedding is the worth thing ever also goes against that habit.
The doctor also shows another habit of the time when he says "...Most women are moody and whimsical. This is some passing whim of your wife, due to some cause or causes which you and I needn't try to fathom. But it will pass happil over, especially if you let her alone." (78) The men at that time assumed that a woman's concerns or issues didn't really make any sense and that they weren't important enough to pay attention too unless she needed to be institutionalized.
When the doctor comes to visit on Thursday as he an Mr. Pontellier arranged Edna is behaving perfectly 'normal'--or at least how society expects. For some reason Edna and her father are bonding and she is fulfilling the 'normal' daughter role of the time. But if you compare how she's treating her father to Mr. Pontellier, there are some parallels. Like when Edna and her father are talking about the horse races and Mr. Pontellier talks about how his disapproves of them, not only does he annoy his father-in-law, but Edna takes her fathers side over her husbands. And the fact that Edna is actually sharing/discussing an interest with her father parallels how she doesn't share interests with Mr. Pontellier at all.
(it was too long to fit so here is the rest for Ch. 21 -25)
ReplyDeleteBut when Edna's father brings up her sister's wedding and Edna's refusal to go to the wedding she is once again going against habit and her father tries to make her feel guilty for it and fails. Mr. Pontellier tries to apologize to his father-in-law for Edna's behavior which seems to be a reoccurring habit.
Surprisingly when Mr. Pontellier leaves to go to the wedding, Edna is uncharacteristically everything Mme. Ratignolle is and what Mr. Pontellier wishes/wants her to be. "She grew melting and affectionate , remembering his many acts of consideration and his repeated expressions of ardent attachment. She was solicitous of his health and his welfare. She bustled around, looking after his clothing, thinking about heavy underwear, quite as Mme. Ratignolle would have done under similar circumstances. She cried when he went away, calling him her dear, good friend, and she was quite certain she would grow lonely before too long and go to join him in New York." (84)
Those feelings don't last long and Edna quickly returns to the moody woman who does whatever she wants--including spending lots of time at the horse races with the infamous Alcee.
Chap. 6-10 (chap. 6)
ReplyDeleteEdna is shown to be very moved by habits, and it seems that she's very much used to living through habit. However, in a few circumstances, she's beginning to realize this, and intends to break them, even the smallest. When Mme. Ratignolle just curiously asks Edna, in a way that seems like she's making small talk, what's on her mind, Edna's first instinct is to just say nothing at all and kind of brush things off. But she realizes this, and catches herself before falling into the habitual pattern. So she goes on in great detail about exactly what she was so intensely thinking about, and Ratignolle even admitted she wasn't expecting a lengthy response. "Oh! never mind! I am not quite so exacting," [Chopin, 17] (Maybe it's a habit to say 'nothing' and for the person asking to -expect- this response. A habit to say nothing, and a habit for the person asking to receive a 'nothing' or 'not much') I felt that Edna was more than just breaking the habit, she felt determined to respond in a way far from usual and habitual.
chapters 16-20:
ReplyDeleteThese chapters show Edna growing away from her habits. There are interesting juxtapositions throughout these chapters regarding habit. In the beginning of chapter 16 we read about Ms. Reisz's Chocolate habit opposed to the loss of obeying habits in Edna. There is a passage in chapter 17 where First Edna goes against habit and finishes her dinner without her husband and then she breaks some stuff up stairs and takes off her wedding rings. In this same passage her maid picks up and gives Edna her ring back, Edna puts it back on her finger. Her wedding ring is a significant link to her role in the society she lives in. The fact that she puts it back on is an indicator that she hasn't fully liberated herself from her role yet.
Chapters 35-39
ReplyDeleteAs the book draws to a close, we see the dismantled wreckage of her habits, old and new, after the return of Robert. She doesn't even get fully dressed to eat breakfast. She even starts to break the habit of Alcee by discarding the letter he sent to her, though it's not totally gone yet because she still goes out with him for one night while waiting around for Robert. Even though she's got some new habits filling in the space where her old ones were, these habits are less constricting: it's become a passing habit of her's to stop by the park while out walking, but this habit isn't conforming to any larger societal constraint. When she's with Robert, she breaks her habit of being reserved around him and finally tells him how she feels.
I'm tempted to say that when she rushes off to be with Mme. Ratignolle, she's slipping back into old habits. Ratignolle had become a much smaller part of her life, because Ratignolle was slipping into a powerful mothering state as she was readying to have her baby and Edna was going the complete opposite way and setting herself free. So, her running back to help Ratignolle is a symbol for the ties that society still has on her, and it causes her to lose Robert. But without him leaving, she would have slipped back into the habit of living with a man. With him gone she is forced to break the habit of her whole cycle of relationships. She breaks the habit of only going to the island in winter. And at the very end of the book when she's wading in the ocean she is quite literally distancing herself as far as she can from her habits. She looks back and remembers the habit of being scared of the ocean (of freedom, of breaking from society) and keeps going.
Chapters 26-30
ReplyDeleteDefinitely by leaving her house and moving out on her own, Edna is breaking her habit of dependence on Leonce and her following societal norms, and it is sort of a huge and final step. Not only is she seeking out her independence by moving out, she is also working hard physically and in labor as cleaning out the old house and preparing her new house.
When Edna is reflecting back on kissing Alcee in Chpt. 28, she describes it as if, "a mist had been lifted from her eyes" (Chopin 99). I think it's very important to examine the way she feels about it, because she says she has a feeling she is unaccustomed to. This is also the breaking of habits, it's unknown and so upsetting to her that she cries. I think her tears in this moment are definitely tears of a confused and lost woman, she is not doing things the only way she ever knew how to do things and t is completely disarming to her.
(make up, Chapter 6-10)
ReplyDeleteIn these few chapters is when Edna really starts to break her habits. The first place we truly see this is when Edna, when asked what she was thinking, replies, "nothing," and then decides that, being an inaccurate answer, she aught to go into further depth of consciousness and really be cognizant of her thoughts. She also brings up how although she had once enjoyed and been dedicated to her religion, she now did anything relating to it only out of habit. After learning to swim, a very liberating moment for her, she speaks to her husband. She doesn't silently acknowledge him as usual, but tries to have a real conversation about her feelings. He doesn't respond in a way satisfactory to her, and she is tired, so she begins to walk home alone. Soon Robert joins her and she again attempts to express her feelings, which he gladly responds to. Edna breaks habits of conservative-ness all throughout this section. The main transformation we see is her beginning to change from introverted to extroverted.