Teaching Philosophy and Materials
First, begin by taking a look at our whiteboard from our class discussion. You'll be reminded that we framed our discussion around two central paradigms of marginality: border and region. These two notions figure terminologically as the identifiers of two veins of scholarly inquiry into literary texts: Regionalism (or Critical Regionalism) and Border Studies. You read an introduction to a book on regionalism (Douglas Reichert Powell's Critical Regionalism) and an article by Martha Cutter, concerning borders and border-transgression in multiethnic American literature ("Editor's Introduction: Transgressing the Borders of ''America.'"). The ideas we derived from these texts informed our first foray into The Awakening.
One student offered that "regions are how we define ourselves"; this follows one of Powell's ideas, illuminated via his tale of the elephant "Murderous Mary," a tale that has become part of the cultural history and personal history of many people who come from a certain region in Tennessee. By sharing a certain "memory" (even if one did not experience an event him or herself) and as a result of being united by vocabulary and custom, people from a region feel a sense of kinship, a sense of solidarity and unity. We see this play out, certainly, in Chopin's early description of what makes Edna "different" from the others on Grand Isle. Apparently, she is not only "different" because of her detachment from notions of material and filial obligation, but she is "different" because of some very basic elements: her religion, her culture, her language, her moral tolerance. Characters throughout the first third of the book comment on these differences of Edna's. We see other characters united with each other simply on the basis of their shared Creole culture, but we see Edna as only disconnected (though Chopin portrays some languid, subtle moments of contact that Edna has, such as in her relationship with Adele). There is always a sense of difference or distance that marks Edna self and her "domain."
We discussed ways of readings texts. One can read a text for plot or for historical resonance or through a variety of critical "lenses": critical regionalist, postcolonialist, deconstructivist, and psychoanalytic are but a few. I referred to these as items on your "tool belt." I also used the metaphor of marbles being rolled over the pages of a text, offering a sort of prismatic effect. You can see, maybe not simultaneously, a text's different dimensions by "rolling a certain marble" over it, or, to use the other metaphor, using one of the tools in your tool belt. Sometimes these strategies afford a reader a deeper and richer experience of the texts. Some students contend, as we know, that these strategies only manipulate the text or diminish its capacity to simply give pleasure. Hopefully, we will see that applying some of these tools results in an enriching experience of the text.
An issue of "translation trouble" always coexists with textual work: sometimes texts are literally "translated" from one language to another and sometimes we can just think of "translation" as what happens between the writer's conception of a story and its ultimate appearance on the page (followed by its "translated" reception by the readers as related to that reader's historical moment and life experience). We considered these ideas of "translation trouble" as they related to regionalism and border-studies concerns.
Martha Cutter reminds us that "borders" are, most often, "artificial." They are cultural, political (but sometimes they are strengthened versions of geographical barriers). We can inquire into Edna's situation early in The Awakening as a suffused with issues that result from the imposition or existence of different kinds of "borders" in her life. What are some of these borders? Take a look at the whiteboard again and see . . .
Finally, think again about the catalysts for narrative action in the first third of The Awakening. These are written at the top of the whiteboard. Along the lefthand-side are the ideas generated by the class articulating the major themes of the first third of the novel. We also made an initial foray into a line of inquiry into the "sensuality" of Edna, particularly regarding the dulled state of her "senses" and their slow awakening. She becomes a more "porous" being as the novel progresses and we see this in her experiences in water and of music in particular.
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