Edna Pontellier's Awakening

In The Awakening, the heroine Edna Pontellier tries to wake from the accustomed domesticity of a housewife to become an actual being in the late 19th century American society. For her realizations have led her to various pioneering decisions as a wife and as a mother, it seems in reality the “awakening” does not need to an actual liberation of her life. Afterall, is the “awakening” a tragedy or comedy for her? The spark of Edna’s awakening starts in the summer in Grand Isle. It comes gradually with the starting dissatisfaction in a submissive family life. In the very beginning of the book, when Leonce returns from Klein’s hotel “in high spirits”, Edna was asleep after taking care of her children.When her response does not satisfy his expectation,
Their feelings have persisted even in the time when they are apart, when Edna looks for her existence in his letters and Robert subtly mentions about Edna in his letters to Mademoiselle Reisz. After Robert returns, they even confess and affirm their love for each other. However, Robert does not wait for Edna’s return, but only leaves a note saying “Goodby – because, I love you.” As we can see throughout the story Robert has been a well-mannered man, trying not to step across the line of propriety. In my opinion, it is part of his love for Edna because it prevents her from any disgraces of affairs. As Robert dreams about it wildy “recalling men who had set their wives free”, it is apparent that the first condition needed is the consent of Leonce to allow a divorce. Secondly, even if Leonce sets Edna “free” in the most “impossible” way, how will people judge her second marriage, with a man she was so close with when she is still married? Robert’s last departure from Edna implies the tragic reality that there is no future for their love in the 19th century American society, that his only hope is that his love will not bring any disgraces to the woman he loves. Edna, still in the chain of marriage, is not “free” if Leonce does not let go. Obviously, with the attempt to renovate the house in covering his problem in marriage and propose a trip with Edna, Leonce is
Somehow her relationship with Robert can also be interpretted as a certain excitement beyond the norms, just as how she thinks her marriage with Leonce is romantic because of her father’s objection. She is also not a perfect artist who can earn a living on her own with her sketches, as an artist “must possess many gifts – absolute gifts – which have not been aquired by one’s own effort”. While Edna’s actions of leaving her home seem to bear the qualities of “the courageous soul” that “dares and defies”, her “gifts” seem not sufficient enough to lift her up from where she has been. Nevertheless, all these flaws of Edna have proved how ordinary women in the 19th century cannot realize their own selves under the social boundaries as a wife and a mother. In fact, the normalness of Edna suggests that this story can happen to any woman in the setting – who may live a loving married life depending on her own submissiveness to the occassionally-courteous husband, who may meet the love of her life after getting married and have no future in the relationship, who may possess certain skills but not yet good enough to achieve as the price is so high that achievement is almost unattainable. If Edna is a tragic heroine who has waken but not realized, then this tragedy might have repeated many times in