Late into the novel The Awakening, Edna seems
to grasp onto the idea of freedom. An example of Edna’s freedom in this book is
the ocean, which Edna has formed a shockingly strong bond with. In the novel,
there is a point in with Robert Lebrun left, which made Edna very upset because
he was the one she really loved and she felt like she could be her normal self
around him. In the last chapter of the book, Edna goes to the beach so she can
be by herself. She walks up to the water and removes her clothes it says “How
strange and awful it seemed to stand naked under the sky! How delicious! She
felt like some new-born creature, opening its eyes in a familiar world that it
had never known.” This really represents Edna’s appreciation of her freedom.
When Edna starts swimming out deep into the ocean, she thinks "It was too
late; the shore was far behind her, and her strength was gone" (Chopin
157). This ending was honestly very abrupt to anyone who got as into the story
as I did.
I did not expect the book to end the way it did. I feel bad for the people who genuinely cared about her though. On the bright side, at least she spent her last moment with freedom.
ReplyDeleteI feel like freedom was all Edna every thought about besides herself. She eat slept and breathed the idea that one day she could be free from everything she thought was a burden to her. She decided the only way to get overall freedom was to take her own life.
ReplyDeleteI agree, I definitely did not see Edna's death coming. Although, it was very foreshadowed in the book, I still couldn't grasp the idea. With Edna being a spontaneous character, the ending was rather sad, and disappointing.
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