“She was becoming herself and daily casting aside that fictitious self which we assume like a garment with which to appear before the world.”
-The Awakening, Kate Chopin
Panorama of the beach view from the cabin.
Upon boarding the plane, I was really excited to see Louisiana. My mom grew up there and I was looking forward to seeing this part of her past. The end of the semester had been very stressful and the idea of being able to explore literature in a different environment and getting away from Los Angeles had become more and more seductive as the weeks wore on. Pulling up to our Grand Isle cabin on Saturday evening, it was clear that this was going to be wonderfully different from the hectic life of college in the big city.
In the novel The Awakening, Kate Chopin explores the difference between the typical American way of living with an emphasis on working and production and the French culture of taking pleasure in and enjoying life. Our first few days on Grand Isle were supposed to allow us to spend time in this French mindset. One of the first things that became clear about Grand Isle was its extraordinary stillness. This wasn’t a tourist spot. The beach the cabin sat atop was empty with the exception of the occasional shrimper or crab trapper. The island was still suffering from the hurricane of the past year, with many buildings in complete ruin and piles of debris lining the road. Nevertheless, the beauty and authenticity of the island were breathtaking. It was in this open land that we were given the chance to dive into the novel.
The novel opens with the main character, Edna, lazing on the beaches of Grand Isle, just as we were all doing. The story of her time there seemed to come to life before me as I could look up from the book to the very place where she sat. We had nothing to do except read and explore. It was hard to adjust at first to the idea that we were supposed to do nothing, but it was such a welcome relief from the oppressive nature of school and the city. I was able to finally breathe. The days stretched out before us, but not in the agonizing way they seem to do when there is too much work and not enough space for thinking, rather in a way that made it seem like we were operating in nature’s time rather than on a manufactured corporate schedule. I woke up early on our first morning, still adjusting to the time change, and was greeted with a blissful quiet, the heat settling on the beach and the last shrimping boats finishing up their nighttime catch. The smallness of the town made the grandness of the ocean feel even bigger and more powerful. As more people woke up, a bunch of us walked out the few yards from the cabin to the beach. We read a bit until the heat and the sun made us seek out the warm ocean water. As we sat on the rocks just offshore, a group of dolphins swam by. Being here felt so magical.
Hurricane-struck house.
In the novel, Grand Isle offers Edna a place to get away from the constraints that society placed on her. The French focus on relaxation, both with friends and independently, gave her an escape from the creeping depression and suffocation she got from daily life. This was something that resonated a lot with me. The way life is normally, and especially at college, it’s very easy for me to fall into dark places and very hard to find my way out. This isn’t to say that leaving the city cured my depression, but not having something constantly to do and not always feeling pressured and stressed by the next thing you’re supposed to be doing is such a relief after living like that for so long. Here, in the open air, I am finally able to pause and look around at what I have instead of focusing on what else I should have done. Sitting in the world in the French way, experiencing the moment as it is rather than rushing through it, I feel so much freedom. Freedom to breathe, freedom to feel happy, freedom to see how beautiful the world can be. I can look out at the evening sky, filled with colors and clouds, and just take a minute to appreciate how beautiful the world is on its own, before people come along and fill it with business and things to do.
Sketch of the broken jetty remains.
The true power of nature on the island was even more evident in the wake of the hurricane. On one of our days, we went to some jetties to walk out over the water only to find there was nothing left but crooked posts and wood piles where there had been structure only a year before. It emphasized how the lives of the people and the things they built were always less important than nature. The destruction of the hurricane was horrible, but the idea that what we do is so impermanent in the face of nature has a beautiful grandiosity to it. No matter how much we try to plan around it, the ocean and the sky are always there, bigger than any of us can picture. I find it important to be reminded that the stresses of human society are not really all that important always.