How Is Edna Pontellier Truly Independent

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When Edna was just a child “she had lived her own small life all within herself. At a very early period she had apprehended instinctively the dual life—that outward existence which conforms, the inward life which questions” (Chopin 14). Edna Pontellier has always had two parts to her life: an internal one that challenges society, and an exterior one that assimilates to it. In the novella, The Awakening, Kate Chopin explores these two parts and explains how Edna tries to balance the two. Unfortunately, with both of these parts behaving simultaneously in opposite directions, Edna is unable to survive. Edna is not truly independent because she refuses to choose between her personal desires and society’s expectations.
Contrary to societal norms …show more content…

Following her personal desires, Edna goes swimming with Robert early in the novel. This shows that she wants to be self-sufficient and go against society, but when she returns she, “silently reached out to [Robert], and he, understanding, took the rings from his vest pocket and dropped them into her open palm. She slipped them upon her fingers” (4). By putting back on her wedding ring, Edna is accepting her role in society and is no longer being defiant. Edna feels that she is neither able to control her situation nor change it, so she just stay in it. If Edna had stopped caring about all her duties as a woman, she would finally become independent, but as she puts back on the ring, symbolizing the society, she refuses to do this. Edna continues to struggle between her personal desires and societal obligations to her family even later in the novel. Edna explains to Doctor Mandelet, “There are periods of despondency and suffering which take possession of me. But I don’t want anything but my own way. That is wanting a good deal, of course, when you have to trample upon the lives, the hearts, the prejudices of others–but no matter–still, I shouldn’t want to trample upon the little lives” (105). Edna goes through times where she does not have courage and feels oppressed; these feelings take control of her. She wants to be

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