The Awakening
It seems we’re all baking in the heat lately. One of my Facebook friends posted a graphic with little red dots everywhere there’s been a new temperature record during the first five days of July. A good 40% of the map was red. June was even worse.
I remember when I was teaching, one of the books that I read with my classes was Kate Chopin’s The Awakening. I’d read it in English class when I was their age and it was in the book room. Being a teenager is all about figuring out who you're going to be when you grow up. And I thought it would be good to read a story about someone who goes against what society says she's supposed to be.
But the main thing that I remember about reading the novel was that my students complained that things moved so slowly. And in a flash of insight, I realized that as Yankees, they’d never experienced the blistering heat and oppressive humidity of a summer in the South. So I explained to them that part of the brilliance of the writing was how it captured the fact that everyone moves slowly in the heat of a Southern summer. We talked about the weather, the many layers of clothing that they wore in the late 19th century, and the lack of air conditioning or electric fans. I’m not sure if they got it. But now the summer heat often makes me think of that story.
And yes my Southern peeps, I grew up below the Mason-Dixon line. I know what your heat and humidity feels like. Y'all have my sympathies.
I remember when I was teaching, one of the books that I read with my classes was Kate Chopin’s The Awakening. I’d read it in English class when I was their age and it was in the book room. Being a teenager is all about figuring out who you're going to be when you grow up. And I thought it would be good to read a story about someone who goes against what society says she's supposed to be.
But the main thing that I remember about reading the novel was that my students complained that things moved so slowly. And in a flash of insight, I realized that as Yankees, they’d never experienced the blistering heat and oppressive humidity of a summer in the South. So I explained to them that part of the brilliance of the writing was how it captured the fact that everyone moves slowly in the heat of a Southern summer. We talked about the weather, the many layers of clothing that they wore in the late 19th century, and the lack of air conditioning or electric fans. I’m not sure if they got it. But now the summer heat often makes me think of that story.
And yes my Southern peeps, I grew up below the Mason-Dixon line. I know what your heat and humidity feels like. Y'all have my sympathies.