As presented through the main male characters of Leonce Pontellier and Robert Lebrun, masculinity is portrayed in The Awakening as domineering and uncomfortable with challenges to its power.
Leonce Pontellier is a wealthy man with a fairly high social position. He expects his wife Edna to follow all of the rules of social propriety and to fulfill her duties as a wife and mother as well as a member of the upper class. After a somewhat carefree summer in Grand Isle, the family returns to New Orleans and to their "normal" lives. At this point, though, Edna has progressed and evolved as a character and no longer wants to play the role for which she is supposed to be fitted. For example, she goes out on walks and does what she feels like doing when she is supposed to be home receiving visitors from the Pontelliers' social class. Leonce chastises Edna for not following these norms. She becomes bolder and acquires a smaller house—the pigeon house—where she decides to live on her own, disgusted by the extravagance and obligations of Leonce's family house. Leonce is, of course, embarrassed and concerned about his reputation as a man and a husband. He is also told at one point by Edna's father that he needs to crack down on her and control her more, as though she is a piece of property or an animal. Masculinity, through Leonce, is portrayed as not flexible or open to challenges and also domineering in the sense that he feels it is his right to control his wife and force her to fulfill certain duties.
Robert Lebrun is a different character from Leonce in many ways; he seems more sensitive, and maybe even more feminine to an extent. However, it turns out that Robert is not so different from other men of his class after all. It is implied that he has an affair with a young Mexican girl, which is accepted (seemingly by all, other than Edna, who is offended because she loves him), and this points to the double standard that men can have sexual experiences outside of marriage while women cannot (contrast this to the way women are judged when they spend time with Alcee Arobin). The best piece of evidence that Robert is basically like other men of his time and class occurs after he and Edna confess their feelings for one another near the end of the novel. Robert says that he wants to marry Edna; in other words, he wants to possess her. Edna is disappointed that Robert still thinks in such traditional ways about the potential relationships of men and women. She finds marriage and gender roles restrictive, but Robert wants to put her in the role of wife all over again. This shows that the male characters are conservative and enjoy their power over women; they want to maintain control over their wives and still think (if subconsciously) of women as belongings rather than independent people with their own wills and desires.
Masculinity is treated as something that is somewhat fragile, especially in the face of an empowered woman. In Grand Isle, when Edna does not leap from her sleep to listen to Leonce's tales of the club and that night's game, he seems to feel that his position is threatened by her failure to play her role. He lies and says that one of their sons is sick, and he reproaches her for her inattention as a mother (when what he is really irritated with is her inattention as a wife). On another, later evening, Edna will not come inside and prefers to remain in the hammock alone rather than come in and give in to her husband's sexual advances, as she becomes aware that, in the past, she would simply have done as he'd asked. With his masculinity threatened by her refusal, Leonce comes outside and refuses to go in as well, as if to make it seem like it is he who is refusing Edna and not the reverse.
Likewise, Robert Lebrun's masculinity cannot handle the unconventional relationship that Edna proposes near the novel's end. He hopes that Leonce will divorce her and that he and Edna can get married and be accepted by society; however, Edna sees that this can never happen and also expresses her desire that it not happen, even if it could. Who would Robert be if he could not perform his masculinity in the way that his society tells him it should be performed: as a husband to a conventional wife and not simply the lover of a disgraced woman? He does not know, and he cannot imagine it, and so he leaves her, this woman he obviously loves.
This seems to be why Edna's failure to be feminine in the proper way is so threatening: it prevents the men in her life from being masculine in what society has dictated to them to be the proper way. Thus, we see that their masculinity is fairly fragile, because it cannot withstand one woman's deviation from her socially-prescribed role. Femininity and masculinity seem to be rooted together, and if the former shifts, the latter will crumble.
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