Kate Chopin’s Novel the Awakening

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of love in her life and Leonce is just not enough for her. Edna leaves Robert; does not file for divorce, and moves into The Pigeon House. She had left Leonce and her two children behind to try and be the independent, strong women that she had been trying to be throughout the entire novel. The Pigeon House to her is where she found her independence, “Every step which she took toward relieving herself from obligations added to her strength and expansion as an individual. She began to look with her own eyes...No longer was she content to "feed upon opinion" when her own soul had invited her” (Chopin 132). The more and more Edna forgets about all her responsibilities put upon her by society, the more Edna becomes an individual and her own person, but that does come with some consequences. Often times when a woman was single, it was hard for her to find a home, and get a job. The women would resort to prostitution to try and make some kind of money to live on their own. Edna was lucky. She was able to have a home and not worry much about her financial standings. Soon after moving to the Pigeon House, Edna realizes that she cannot do this much longer. She needs affection in her life and she cannot get that with Robert because he is in New Orleans and she cannot get it with Leonce because she does not love him the way she loves Robert, but he is not there. Edna “Understood now clearly what she had been too long ago when she said to Adele Ratignolle that she would give up the unessential, but she would never sacrifice herself for her children” (Chopin 159). Edna was in the midst of thinking about her suicide, about how she knew that there was not much for her anymore. She was alone, with nobody to love and nothing to do.

It was not just an automatic, quick decision for her to go and kill herself, there was much more. Edna had some kind of depression and for as long as she tried to fight it, she could not take it any longer. If she had gone to admit it to someone how she was feeling then she would have been thrown into an Insane Asylum and tortured there. Edna’s thought that her only way out was by killing herself and that would relieve all her pain and despair. She went back to the water, went back to where she had learned to swim and feel the most independent, and that is where she left everyone that is where she felt her strength and the courage to do this. “‘Good-by-because I love you.’...but it was too late; the shore was far behind her, and her strength was gone” (Chopin 160). Edna killed herself in the water, probably the most important symbol in the entire novel. She found her independence there and that is where she left her independence. From beginning to end, her life had come full circle.

Edna’s suicide was caused by the want and need for dependence on a man. Her need for an important, meaningful connection is something that she looks for through the entire novel, but by the end realizes that without a connection there is no such thing as being dependent and all she wanted was to be independent and defy against all social norms and the standards of the Nineteenth Century. Without dependence there is no such thing as a connection and without a connection there is no such thing as being independent.

Works Cited

Chopin, Kate. The Awakening. Clayton: Prestwick House, 1993. Print.

"Kate Chopin - About Us - Website Contributors." N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Oct. 2016.

"Obtaining a Divorce - UK Parliament." N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Oct. 2016.

"Women in the Nineteenth Century - IVCC." N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Oct. 2016.