Molly's response to that section was that we "all need a good cry sometimes." However, I believe this to be more than a "good cry" type of situation. I suffer from depression, and I think that Mrs. Pontellier does too. When things like the kindness and devotion of others carry a weight and bring sadness instead of happiness, something is wrong. Perhaps Mrs. Pontellier feels the way she does because she considers herself an outsider to the culture. Depression could also explain the detachment she has from her children.
Saturday, March 3, 2012
A Good Cry?
Yesterday in discussing the first section of The Awakening, we read in Chapter 3 of Mrs. Pontellier's breakdown at night. "She could not have told why she was crying. Such experiences as the foregoing were not uncommon in her married life. They seemed never before to have weighed much against the abundance of her husband's kindness and a uniform devotion which had come to be tacit and self-understood."
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I agree. I think Mrs. Pontillier does have depression but it is not at the severe point yet. Give her a little happiness and she'll be good to go.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you as well. I also see traits of depression in Mrs. Pontellier and as someone else who also suffers from depression, I think she sees everyone being so happy and it makes her sad that she doesn't feel the same way and to me, I think she almost feels guilty that she feels so sad and cries when others are happy. I think her depression could be a couple different types but I think it probably all stemmed from giving birth and not treating the post partum depression and it just getting worse.
ReplyDeleteI agree too. I think there is definitely depression in Mrs. Pontellier's life, but maybe she doesn't really know how to fix it? She's become a mother without any emotional attachment to her children, and a married woman when all she really wants to do is be young and have fun without the adult commitment. Maybe she thinks that she can never have a youthful life and she will be forever stuck in a mother-wife role.
ReplyDeleteI think that I also agree. I also think that maybe her being able to cry is really honorable for a woman during this time. While she does seem sufficiently suppressed, this moment seems important. She may not recognize what is happening to her, but she is at least allowing herself to act upon it.
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