The Awakening Debriefing Project Chapter XXXIX By: Josephine Fernandez, Ethan Dugboe & Istou Diallo

Motifs Rebirth Childhood/Children

Symbols Birds The Sea

Tone Contentment Melancholy Cathartic

Point of View 3rd Person-omnipotent

Setting Grand Isle The Sea

Edna's Disposition With the Water- Resistant in going into the water while walking with Robert on the beach ( Chapter V) Following her party, everyone toward the sea, and go into the water without thinking it twice, Edna is hesitant. Suddenly she feels empowered and walks into the the water alone. She begins to swim and realizes she is no longer “splashing about like a baby!". However she panicked and rushed back to shore, where she soon ran home. (Chapter X) She choses to go to the beach where she stood naked in front of the water, with a brand new perspective, and went in. She swam without hesitation. She swam without looking back.

Edna's Disposition (cont...) With her kids: Edna feels that she would do anything for her kids even give up her life.But she refuses to give up the things like her interest, personality and what essentially makes her Edna. “I would give up the unessential; I would give up my money, I would give up my life for my children; but I wouldn't give myself. I can't make it more clear; it's only something I can beginning to comprehend, which is revealing itself to me.” (Ch.XVI)

Edna's Disposition (cont...) With Robert: At first Edna sees Robert little more than a nuisance. As she discovers herself though she begins to open up to his flirtation, eventually falling in love with him to the point of obsessing over him. However, as she shows interest in him, he realizes how their love is "socially" wrong. So throughout the story he tries to forget about about her, and keeps a distance. In his last attempt to separate himself from her. He leaves a note that reads, "I love You. Goodbye—because I love you.” , and as she dies, she remembers these words.

Edna's Relationship to Other Characters Madame Riez: During Madame Riez's concert ,Edna is the only person who truly feels her emotion and secret meaning behind Riez's music even bringing her to the point of tears .(Chapter IX) Robert: For Edna robert offers her a fantasy of love and life that she lacks in her original life. Which is why she feels that she must have robert because he is the only one who accepts her as she is.(Chapter XXXVI)

Edna's Relationships with Others (cont...) With Leonce Pontellier: In the beginning, despite of her displacement in her relationship with her husband, she valued his opinion of her, and other opinion on her relationship. At the end of the story, She no longer cares of his opinion, and she no longer care for keeping up appearances of "a happy couple." WIth Raoul and Etienne: Throughout the story, she states several times that she loves her children. However, they are, what she considers, to have "overpowered and sought to drag her into the soul's slavery for the rest of her days." (Pg. 123)

Quote #1 Exhaustion was pressing upon and overpowering her. "Good-by because I love you". He did not know he did not understand." (pg.124) Interpertation: In this quote Edna revealed why she was commiting suicide.She came to the realization that just like her husband, Robert saw her as a material possession and to be with him would mean going back to the slavery she hated something she could not do.So to protect Robert from his expectations and to escape from the life she feared she resorted to taking her life.

Quote #2 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 (pg. 124, para. 3). Interpretation: In this quote, Edna has reached the shore and is ready to leave behind her kids, family, husband, essentially her life to "save" herself from this society. Once she strips off all her connotations to society, she suddenly feels reborn again in a new world that's all too familiar to her. Showing that her desire to be a feminist a break away from the stereotypical women is a part of her nature even from birth.

Quote #3 "All along the white beach, up and down,there was beating the air above, reeling fluttering, circling disabled down,down, down to the water. Edna had found her old bathing suit still hanging, faded, upon its accustomed peg" (Pg. 124). Interpretation: This description matches Mademoiselle Reisz’s earlier warning, “The bird that would soar above the level plain of tradition and prejudice must have strong wings. It is a sad spectacle to see the weaklings bruised, exhausted, fluttering back to earth.” Edna is the bird. Both struck by reality, came tumbling, however, while the bird struggled. Edna accepted her fate, fore, it was her liberation and her rebirth.

Finalement... In the end of chapter XXXIX, Edna commits suicide with the intent of freeing herself from all the unjust she was faced with. However, with committing suicide has she really freed herself, or did she just tighten the waves of discontent around her as she drank in her last breath?