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The Awakening opensin the late 1800s in Grand Isle, a summerholiday resort popular with the wealthy inhabitants of nearby NewOrleans. Edna Pontellier is vacationing with her husband, Léonce,and their two sons at the cottages of Madame Lebrun, which houseaffluent Creoles from the French Quarter. Léonce is kind and lovingbut preoccupied with his work. His frequent business-related absencesmar his domestic life with Edna. Consequently, Edna spends mostof her time with her friend Adèle Ratignolle, a married Creole whoepitomizes womanly elegance and charm. Through her relationshipwith Adèle, Edna learns a great deal about freedom of expression. BecauseCreole women were expected and assumed to be chaste, they couldbehave in a forthright and unreserved manner. Exposure to such opennessliberates Edna from her previously prudish behavior and repressedemotions and desires.

Edna’s relationship with Adèle begins Edna’s process of“awakening” and self-discovery, which constitutes the focus of thebook. The process accelerates as Edna comes to know Robert Lebrun,the elder, single son of Madame Lebrun. Robert is known among the GrandIsle vacationers as a man who chooses one woman each year—oftena married woman—to whom he then plays “attendant” all summer long.This summer, he devotes himself to Edna, and the two spend theirdays together lounging and talking by the shore. Adèle Ratignolleoften accompanies them.

Oct 05, 2012 'Kings' are individuals who have been bestowed with incredible supernatural powers and granted the ability to recruit others into their clans. Protecting the lives and honor of their clansmen is an integral part of the Kings' duties. K., a land surveyor, arrives late at night in an anonymous town which sits at the foot of a large castle. After some confusion about his identity and whether he has permission to be there, K. Is able to get some sleep. Tries to go up to the Castle himself but finds the thick snow too tiring.

At first, the relationship between Robert and Edna isinnocent. They mostly bathe in the sea or engage in idle talk. Asthe summer progresses, however, Edna and Robert grow closer, andRobert’s affections and attention inspire in Edna several internalrevelations. She feels more alive than ever before, and she startsto paint again as she did in her youth. She also learns to swimand becomes aware of her independence and sexuality. Edna and Robertnever openly discuss their love for one another, but the time theyspend alone together kindles memories in Edna of the dreams anddesires of her youth. She becomes inexplicably depressed at nightwith her husband and profoundly joyful during her moments of freedom, whetheralone or with Robert. Recognizing how intense the relationship betweenhim and Edna has become, Robert honorably removes himself from GrandIsle to avoid consummating his forbidden love. Edna returns to NewOrleans a changed woman.

Back in New Orleans, Edna actively pursues her paintingand ignores all of her social responsibilities. Worried about thechanging attitude and increasing disobedience of his wife, Léonceseeks the guidance of the family physician, Doctor Mandelet. A wiseand enlightened man, Doctor Mandelet suspects that Edna’s transformationis the result of an affair, but he hides his suspicions from Léonce.Instead, Doctor Mandelet suggests that Léonce let Edna’s defiancerun its course, since attempts to control her would only fuel herrebellion. Léonce heeds the doctor’s advice, allowing Edna to remainhome alone while he is away on business. With her husband gone andher children away as well, Edna wholly rejects her former lifestyle.She moves into a home of her own and declares herself independent—thepossession of no one. Her love for Robert still intense, Edna pursuesan affair with the town seducer, Alcée Arobin, who is able to satisfyher sexual needs. Never emotionally attached to Arobin, Edna maintainscontrol throughout their affair, satisfying her animalistic urgesbut retaining her freedom from male domination.

At this point, the self-sufficient and unconventionalold pianist Mademoiselle Reisz adopts Edna as a sort of protégé,warning Edna of the sacrifices required of an artist. Edna is movedby Mademoiselle Reisz’s piano playing and visits her often. Sheis also eager to read the letters from abroad that Robert sendsthe woman. A woman who devotes her life entirely to her art, Mademoiselleserves as an inspiration and model to Edna, who continues her processof awakening and independence. Mademoiselle Reisz is the only personwho knows of Robert and Edna’s secret love for one another and sheencourages Edna to admit to, and act upon, her feelings.

Unable to stay away, Robert returns to New Orleans, finally expressingopenly his feelings for Edna. He admits his love but reminds herthat they cannot possibly be together, since she is the wife ofanother man. Edna explains to him her newly established independence,denying the rights of her husband over her and explaining how sheand Robert can live together happily, ignoring everything extraneousto their relationship. But despite his love for Edna, Robert feelsunable to enter into the adulterous affair.

When Adèle undergoes a difficult and dangerous childbirth, Ednaleaves Robert’s arms to go to her friend. She pleads with him to waitfor her return. From the time she spends with Edna, Adèle sensesthat Edna is becoming increasingly distant, and she understandsthat Edna’s relationship with Robert has intensified. She remindsEdna to think of her children and advocates the socially acceptablelifestyle Edna abandoned so long ago. Doctor Mandelet, while walkingEdna home from Adèle’s, urges her to come see him because he isworried about the outcome of her passionate but confused actions.Already reeling under the weight of Adèle’s admonition, Edna beginsto perceive herself as having acted selfishly.

Edna returns to her house to find Robert gone,a note of farewell left in his place. Robert’s inability to escapethe ties of society now prompts Edna’s most devastating awakening.Haunted by thoughts of her children and realizing that she wouldhave eventually found even Robert unable to fulfill her desiresand dreams, Edna feels an overwhelming sense of solitude. Alonein a world in which she has found no feeling of belonging, she can findonly one answer to the inescapable and heartbreaking limitationsof society. She returns to Grand Isle, the site of her first momentsof emotional, sexual, and intellectual awareness, and, in a finalescape, gives herself to the sea. As she swims through the soft,embracing water, she thinks about her freedom from her husband andchildren, as well as Robert’s failure to understand her, DoctorMandelet’s words of wisdom, and Mademoiselle Reisz’s courage. Thetext leaves open the question of whether the suicide constitutesa cowardly surrender or a liberating triumph.

Company K is a 1933 novel by William March, first serialised in parts in the New York magazine The Forum from 1930 to 1932, and published in its entirety by Smith and Haas on 19 January 1933, in New York. The book's title was taken from the Marinecompany that March served in during World War I. It has been regarded as one of the most significant works of literature to come out of the American World War I experience and the most reprinted of all March's work.

Plot summary[edit]

The novel comprises 113 vignettes about World War I Marines in Company K. The novel is told from the viewpoint of 113 different Marines, stretching from the beginning of training to after the war. These sketches create contrasting and horrific accounts of the daily life endured by the common Marine. Many of the accounts stem from actual events witnessed and experienced by the author.

It has often been described as an anti-militarist and an anti-war novel, but March maintained that the content was based on truth and should be viewed as an affirmation of life.

Literary significance & criticism[edit]

K-12 Plot Summary

Writer and literary critic for the SpectatorGraham Greene places it among the most important of all war novels:

'His book has the force of a mob-protest; an outcry from anonymous throats. The wheel turns and turns and it does not matter, one hardly notices that the captain of the company, killed on page 159, is alive again a hundred pages later. It does not matter that every stock situation of the war, suicide, the murder of an officer, the slaughter of prisoners, a vision of Christ, is apportioned to Company K, because the book is not written in any realistic convention. It is the only War-book I have read which has found a new form to fit the novelty of the protest. The prose is bare, lucid, without literary echoes, not an imitation but a development of eighteenth-century prose.'^[1]

The journalist and writer Christopher Morley had an almost identical response to Company K after reading an advance copy:

'It's queer about this book--it suddenly made me wonder whether any other book about the War has been written in this country. It's a book of extra-ordinary courage--not the courage of hope but the quiet courage of despair. It will make patriots and romanticists angry--yet it is the kind of patriotism that is hardest and toughest. It ranks at once with the few great cries of protest. It is a selected, partial, bitter picture, but a picture we need. It will live. None of the acts of bravery for which the author was decorated during the War was as brave as this anthology of dismay.'^[2]

Company K has often been compared to Erich Maria Remarque's classic anti-war novel 'All Quiet on the Western Front' for its hopeless view of war. University of Alabama professor and author Philip Beidler wrote in his introduction to the 1989 republication of the novel:

'the act of writing Company K, in effect reliving his very painful memories, was itself an act of tremendous courage, equal to or greater than whatever it was that earned him the Distinguished Service Cross, Navy Cross and French Croix de Guerre'.^[3]

Years after the completion of Company K, Ernest Hemingway published Men At War: The Best War Stories of All Time. In the introduction Hemingway notes that of all the stories published in the novel, the two he most desired to publish were omitted, Andre Malraux's Man's Fate and William March's Nine Prisoners, one of the original serialized excerpts from Company K. Hemingway states that the anti-war aspects of the stories would not bode well, as the novel coincides with the beginnings of World War II. He further states:

'Since the military problem, which was by no means clearly presented in the story, will undoubtedly arise many times in this war, I thought the story should be omitted from this book for the duration of the war. After the war, if a new edition of this book is published, I should strongly advise that the story be included.'^[4]

Publication information[edit]

• 1933, USA, Smith and Haas, Publication date 19 January 1933, hardback
• 1933, UK, Victor Gollancz Limited, 20 March 1933, hardback
• 1952, USA, Lion Books, November 1952, hardback
• 1955, USA, Lion Books, December 1955, hardback
• 1957, USA, Sagamore Press Inc., 1957, paperback
• 1958, USA, Signet Books, May 1958, paperback
• 1959, UK, Transworld Publishers, 4 February 1959, paperback
• 1959, ITL, Longanesi & Company, 1959, paperback (ITL edition as Fuoco!)
• 1965, UK, Transworld Publishers, 1965, paperback
• 1968, UK, Transworld Publishers, 1968, paperback
• 1976, UK, Thomas Nelson & Sons Ltd., Pub date 1976, hardback
• 1984, USA, Arbor House, Pub date 1984, paperback
• 1989, USA, The University of Alabama Press, 1989, paperback

Adaptations[edit]

A film adaptation of the same name was made in 2004. It was written and directed by Robert Clem and starred Ari Filakos.^{[citation needed]}

References[edit]

1. ^Simmonds, Roy S. (1988). William March: An Annotated Checklist (First ed.). University of Alabama Press. p. 120. ISBN0-8173-0361-8.
2. ^Simmonds (1988), p. 4.
3. ^William, March (1989). Company K: with an introduction by Philip D. Beidler (First ed.). University of Alabama Press. ISBN0-8173-0480-0.
4. ^From the 1942 introduction of Ernest Hemingway's Men At War: The Best War Stories of All Time, p. xxx.

K-pax Plot Summary

External links[edit]

• Company K (2004) on IMDb

Jannat K Pattay Plot Summary