The Thematic Influence of the Bleak Atmosphere of Love, Solitude and Death,

in Keats' Poem, “La Belle Dame sans Merci”,

on Chapter XXXIX of Kate Chopin's novel, The Awakening



The Thematic Influence of The Bleak Atmosphere of Love, Solitude and Death,

in Keats' Poem, “La Belle Dame sans Merci”,

on Chapter XXXIX of Kate Chopin's novel, The Awakening

Introduction

Keats' ballad, “La Belle Dame sans Merci”, is about a knight's experience, on a cold hill, who after being lulled to sleep by his beloved, dreams of death and awakens to face lost love and eternal solitude. The Awakening, titled A Solitary Soul, by Kate Chopin, is a story of Edna Pontellier who for her love and sensual life, abandons her husband and children, experiences an awakening later to face the “dreary and deserted” atmosphere around her which overwhelms her to the extent that she drowns herself in the cold water of the Gulf of Mexico. Keats' themes of lost love, solitude and death recur through his poems especially in “The Eve of St. Agnes” and “La Belle Dame Sans Merci”. Chopin for challenging gender ideologies and women suppression during the Victorian times responds to Keats' “La Belle Dame Sans Merci” by imitating the theme of bleak atmosphere of love and death throughout The Awakening and especially in the last chapter.

Discussion

Keats' poetry abounds with beauty and sensations. His words related to beauty and sensations are the most famous: “'Beauty is truth, truth beauty—that is all. Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know” and "O for a life of sensations rather than of thoughts!” His poem, “La Belle Dame Sans Merci”, with all the beauty and sensation, reflects the theme of lost love, solitude and death. Keats' personal life was surrounded by financial crisis, darkness, disease and depression. He had loved two women, firstly, Isabella Jones and secondly, Fanny Brawne. This love could not result in marriage. He wrote to Brawne "I have two luxuries to brood over in my walks; "he wrote to her, "...your loveliness, and the hour of my death". This theme of unachieved love, resulting in solitude and death, resounds in Chopin's The Awakening.

Chopin's last chapter of The Awakening imitates not just the theme of bleak atmosphere of love, solitude and death but also the symbols, flow, syntax and semantic fields of Keats' poem in order to further emphasize the solitude of the protagonist, Edna.

In this chapter, Chopin's entire description of Edna, her appearance, her moves, her walk and her thoughts are an imitation of the portrayal of the knight, by Keats in “La Belle Dam sans Merci”. Keats' knight is “alone and palely loitering” though the atmosphere is not congenial for wandering.

When Edna came out of the house, she appeared similar to the knight, “tired and a little travel-stained”. It seemed to her that everything around her is dull and desolate: “How dreary and deserted everything looks!” The knight's environment is also drab. The sedge has withered, and there are no birds ...