“The very passions themselves were aroused within her soul, swaying it, lashing it, as the waves daily beat upon her splendid body.”
Kate Chopin, The Awakening
My Writing Process:
- At first, I wanted to take a look at “The Yellow Wallpaper” for this essay. I went through all the steps of reading the story multiple times and taking notes, but after doing so, I was not excited about my potential arguments. They all seemed too basic and not creative enough. After much wavering, I decided to come back to trusty Kate Chopin and The Awakening.
- The first time I read The Awakening for my Close Reading essay, I remember being incredibly interested in Edna and Mademoiselle Reisz’s relationship. I got the sense that there was more than friendship there, and thus my Gender Studies topic was born. I decided to do a queer reading of The Awakening, focusing specifically on the relationship between Edna and Mademoiselle Reisz. Already, this was a much more interesting topic to me, and I was excited to get researching.
- I liked that we had to write out a formal proposal for this essay because of the complexity of the topics and sources we had to use. The comments my peers made on my proposal were really helpful; they had numerous ideas about how to incorporate different parts of the novel into my essay that I hadn’t thought about before. I found that writing a detailed proposal before writing the first draft helped immensely to organize my thoughts and ideas.
- I found a lot of great sources that talk about the homoerotic nature of the two women’s relationship, but when I started writing the essay, I felt like I had no idea what I was doing. I knew what I wanted to argue, I just didn’t know how to articulate it. I was second-guessing myself the entire time, but I got through it and handed it in, not expecting good results.
- The moral of the story to all of my essays is that they are never as bad as I think they are. Dr. Pennington’s comments on my first draft were mainly positive, much to my surprise. He did say that I focused a little too much on LeBlanc’s “metaphorical lesbian” argument and that I needed to talk more about my argument rather than hers. He also questioned whether I needed to bring in Madame Ratignolle since she also has a sensual relationship with Edna.
- After thinking about it, I decided I wanted to keep the focus only on Reisz and Edna, so in my first revision, I put my effort into developing my argument and removing some quotes from LeBlanc. Dr. Pennington felt that this revision was ready for portfolio consideration but wanted me to push a little further. He wanted me to expand on my analysis of the sea and why it is a symbol of lesbian love.
- In my second and final revision of this essay, I added more textual evidence that supports my argument of the sea being a sensual entity. I also expanded on my idea that Edna embraces her homoerotic feelings through her suicide and explained why she had to die at all. I felt very confident in this revision, and Dr. Pennington said it was ready for portfolio consideration.
