​Music
The use of music throughout The Awakening is used in a way that is masked to follow popular positions on the Romantic musical movement but Chopin also breaks out of the stereotypical passive female who is resigned to the way music impacts her or holds her back.
The year 1899, when the Awakening was first published, was followed by 50 years of controversy around music’s negative and potentially morally destructive nature and novelists of that time were cashing in on this kind of impact on young women. Such views can be found in the works of Tolstoy and other male contemporary authors of the century.

The 19th century saw major social changes in music and artistic freedom because they no longer relied on a patronage system. This gave composers and performers much more control over their music and allowed them to tour more. Also, audiences who had time and wealth could take lessons on an instrument and they could obtain simplified works to perform at home. “Empowered socially as well as artistically, the performer, for the first time, became associated with control; the performer’s music meant power” (Dawson 88). Mademoiselle Reisz and Adele Ratignolle are excellent examples of audiences who anticipated simplified works or had the time and wealth to purchase such music and instruments. Reisz is nearly always found at the piano in every appearance she makes in the book and the Ratignolle’s are well known for their soiree musicales. This fact may account for why Mademoiselle Reisz is a social outcast, as music is a symbol of power, but women are not supposed to be powerful on their own.

However, this does not explain why so many people of the time considered music as morally destructive. The reason “Romantic music was considered dangerous [was] because of its supposed ability to prompt uncharacteristic behavior” (Dawson 89). This concerned critics because the reactions young women were having toward this music seemed to support this idea. Many female audiences had extreme reactions to Romantic musicians. An account of such reactions are captured in a historical recollection of one of Liszt’s performances:
 

“When Liszt played the piano, ladies flung their jewels on the stage instead of bouquets. They shrieked in ecstacy and sometimes fainted. Those who remained mobile made a mad rush to the stage to gaze upon the features of the divine man. They fought over the green gloves he had purposely left on the piano. One lady fished out the stub of a cigar that Liszt had smoked. She carried it in her bosom to the day she died. Other ladies came away with priceless relics in the form of broken strings from the piano he had played” (qtd in Dawson 89).



Even Edna fits into this idea, slightly, as she sobs in response to the Romantic music Mademoiselle Reisz plays and even decides to try swimming after hearing Chopin’s music. However, Edna experiences these changes in character and thought before as well as after her listening to Romantic music.



"Mrs. Pontellier was beginning to realize her position in the universe as a human being, and to recognize her relations as an individual to the world within and about her. This may seem like a ponderous weight of wisdom to descend upon the soul of a young woman of twenty-eight--perhaps more wisdom than the Holy Ghost is usually pleased to vouchsafe to any woman” (19).​

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With or without music, Edna was not going to leave Grand Isle the same woman she was before she arrived there. Rather than “impos[ing] a metaphysical consciousness on Edna, music heightens Edna’s awareness of her spiritual nature as it elevates and exalts her” (Dawson 91). It even offers her means of conveying her new understanding of life by explaining elements of it to music such as “delicious song” (146) to describe her children. 

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“All along the journey homeward their presence lingered with her like the memory of a delicious song.”



 The use of “delicious song” is an excellent way to explain the way Edna feels about her children because it shows her enjoyment in them as well as her distance from them. She does not say they are her “delicious song” which means someone else wrote the music and her only part is in the listening or observation of it. The use of the word song, instead of symphony, opera, or any other forms of music that goes on for extended periods of time, shows that Edna is satisfied with spending brief moments with them rather than stay for a long while and hear the same thing over and over again. Also, Chopin describes the experience not as listening to the song but as a memory of it, which shows that Edna’s delight in her children is only fully appreciated when she is away from them.
Another way Edna breaks this idea of a negative impact of Romantic music is because, rather than being a passive, tragic figure, she is moved and motivated to follow her own passions after hearing Mademoiselle Reisz play. The music is also not used as a tool to take advantage of her. Most other novels of the time neglect the listener’s emotions and mental processes while they are listening. This voice in The Awakening is “important because it depicts Edna’s perceptions of Romantic music” (Dawson 94). After she hears this music, she does not just sit and continue to weep and do nothing with her life than continue to hear and/or idolize the music. She feels courage and determination enough to learn to swim and explore more of the world and the potential of what it can be fore her.
What is especially interesting is that the allusions to music disappear or end in silence when Edna realizes her “preparedness for artistry and her artistic expectations are to be at odds with each other” (Dawson 95).

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​End: “But by the time she had regained the city the song no longer echoed in her soul. She was again alone” (146). ​

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​Silence: “The voice of Edna’s disbanding guests jarred like a discordant note upon the quiet harmony of the night.” (140).

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This happens before Edna even fully realizes she cannot live the life she hopes for as an artist and also be a woman in love but not tied down by the traditional standards of womanhood. These musical symbols act as subtle hints at and nudges toward Edna’s understanding of her desired position and possibilities (or lack thereof) she has in a society with such a narrow view of female gender roles.