Chapter XXXIX Practice Quiz — The Awakening
by Kate Chopin — tap or click to flip
Practice Quiz: Chapter XXXIX
What are Victor and Mariequita doing when Chapter XXXIX opens?
Victor is patching a corner of one of the galleries with hammer and nails, while Mariequita sits nearby watching him and handing him nails.
What event are Victor and Mariequita gossiping about?
The farewell dinner at Mrs. Pontellier's house, which Victor wildly exaggerates into a Lucullean feast with golden goblets and incomparable beauties.
What does Mariequita suspect about Victor and Edna?
She suspects that Victor is in love with Mrs. Pontellier, which he neither confirms nor denies, giving evasive answers that encourage her belief.
How does Edna arrive at Grand Isle?
She arrives alone on Beaudelet's lugger, having come with no particular purpose other than to rest.
What warning do Victor and Mariequita give Edna about swimming?
They both exclaim that the water is too cold and urge her not to think of it.
What does Edna mean when she says "To-day it is Arobin; to-morrow it will be some one else"?
She recognizes that her romantic attachments are impermanent and that no single lover can satisfy her deeper longing for autonomy and selfhood.
How does Edna view her children Raoul and Etienne in this chapter?
She sees them as antagonists who have overcome her and would drag her into "the soul's slavery for the rest of her days."
What earlier promise to Adele Ratignolle does Edna recall in Chapter XXXIX?
She recalls saying that she would give up the unessential but would never sacrifice herself for her children.
What emotion settled on Edna during the wakeful night after Robert left?
Despondency came upon her and had never lifted since.
What is the repeated phrase Chopin uses to describe the voice of the sea?
"Seductive, never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander in abysses of solitude."
What does Edna do with her bathing suit before entering the water?
She puts it on in the bath-house, walks to the shore, then casts it off entirely to stand naked in the open air for the first time in her life.
How does Edna feel standing naked under the sky?
She feels "like some new-born creature, opening its eyes in a familiar world that it had never known" — both strange and delicious.
What creature does Edna see near the shoreline, and what does it symbolize?
A bird with a broken wing, beating the air and circling disabled down to the water. It symbolizes Edna's failed attempt to soar above societal convention, recalling Mademoiselle Reisz's warning about needing strong wings.
What earlier experience does Edna remember as she swims outward?
She remembers the night she first swam far out at Grand Isle and the terror that seized her at the fear of being unable to regain the shore.
What childhood image does Edna think of while swimming out to sea?
The blue-grass meadow she had traversed as a little child, believing it had no beginning and no end.
What does the blue-grass meadow symbolize in the novel's final scene?
It symbolizes boundless, unconstrained freedom — a limitless space without boundaries, paralleling the infinite sea into which Edna swims.
Whose words echo in Edna's mind as she imagines judgment of her choice?
Mademoiselle Reisz's: "The artist must possess the courageous soul that dares and defies."
What is Robert's farewell line that Edna recalls in her final moments?
"Good-by — because I love you."
What does Edna conclude about Robert's understanding of her?
She thinks, "He did not know; he did not understand. He would never understand."
Which doctor does Edna wish she had spoken to before it was too late?
Doctor Mandelet, whom she believes might have understood her situation.
What five sensory details compose Edna's final moments of consciousness?
Her father's voice, her sister Margaret's voice, the barking of a dog chained to a sycamore tree, the clanging spurs of a cavalry officer, and the hum of bees with the musky odor of pinks.
What literary technique does Chopin use by ending the novel with childhood memories rather than death imagery?
Circular structure (also called a frame narrative technique): the novel ends where Edna's psychological life began, in the unconstrained freedom of childhood, mirroring the novel's opening at Grand Isle.
What is the term "Lucullean" a reference to in Victor's description of the dinner?
It refers to Lucullus, a Roman general famous for his lavish banquets. Victor uses the word to exaggerate the extravagance of Edna's farewell dinner.
How does the imagery of serpents appear in the final swim scene?
The foamy wavelets "coiled like serpents about her ankles" as Edna entered the water, evoking both sensuality and danger.
What is significant about Edna asking for fish for dinner while planning her final swim?
It creates dramatic irony: Edna performs the mundane rituals of daily life (requesting dinner, asking for towels) while internally she has already made her irreversible decision, and Victor and Mariequita have no idea.