The Awakening - Powerful Repetition - Jaclyn Burr

On page 18 of The Awakening, Edna Pontellier's early feelings of infatuation and rejection are explored. Chopin writes, "Edna was a little miss, just merging into her teens; and the realization that she herself was nothing, nothing, nothing to the engaged young man was a bitter affliction to her. But he, too, went the way of her dreams". When I read this, I was a little surprised at the repetition of the word "nothing", as I don't ordinarily see the same word used three times in a row. I stopped at the sentence, noting the way this repetition caught my eye, and how it made me think. Repeating "nothing, nothing, nothing" strongly impacted the bitter feeling of rejection and worthlessness felt by Edna at the knowledge of unreturned feelings of admiration toward this man. If Chopin would have simply wrote that Edna realized "that she herself was nothing to the engaged young man", it would have seemed like a bland fact, nothing more. Yet, repeating the word "nothing" over and over like she does evokes a sheer pain and inability to escape this feeling of worthlessness and loneliness inside Edna, and reminds the reader of the "nothing" Edna feels in other aspects of her life. The frustration and hurt at this nothingness helps me understand Edna's gradual awakening into a "New Woman", realizing that she is in fact, something, and deserves pleasure and peace for herself after years of feeling unfulfilled and meaningless.