journal 29

Nika Bogoslovsky
2/27/08
Chopin

Quote: “Once she turned and looked toward the shore, toward the people she had left there. She had not gone any great distance-that is, what would have been a great distance for and experienced swimmer. But to her unaccustomed vision the stretch of water behind her assumed the aspect of a barrier which her unaided strength would never be able to overcome.”

Summary: Mrs. Pontellier swims for the first time on her own. People have been trying to teach her all summer but their efforts seem useless but finally and a night swim, she is able to do it all by herself. It is a completely liberating feeling for her.

Response: Mrs. Pontellier has this great accomplishment and overcomes her inability to swim and there is this great sense of realization she has. She discovers that she is in control of her own body, that she is capable to do things without the help of others and that as a woman, she is not just weak and feeble. Yet, there is also a sad realization that the reader has to come to as well as Mrs. Pontellier's own realizations. In the quote it says that her strength would never be able to overcome, we know that the wonderfully liberating emotions she currently experiences will not remain and that she will not be happy forever. The quote also says that had she been an experienced swimmer, she would have the strength and again it illuminates the fact that she's new to these feelings and perhaps too late in her life to be experiencing them because ultimately they consume her. I hate to say that she is too late in her life to be experiencing such feelings because I don't believe it's ever to late to liberate oneself but I can't deny that she is too weak to handle them because her suicide is a sad attempt at escape.