The end of The Awakening caught me by surprise, even though I probably should have seen it coming. Edna had reached her limit in tolerating the destructive world that clearly caused her to lose her light. Her mental health had been deteriorating since the first chapter, and the abandonment by Robert was the last straw. I believe Edna made an unconscious decision that she wouldn’t have made if the situation had unfolded in her favour. Edna was happy for the first time in a while after Robert had confessed their love. Moreover, even if Robert had stayed, he and Edna would not only have been ostracized by their community, but she would also have to lose her children to an extent. During the labour scene, Adele tells Edna to “think of the children.” The biggest critique of her affair would be the fact that she is doing an injustice to her children. As the story established before, Edna is not a “mother woman. Nonetheless, she is a mother, which is something that cannot be undone. Edna had lost her ability to put herself first because her identity is tied to being a mother. On social media, I came across a video of a woman who expressed her fears of being a mother. She shared that her biggest problem with becoming a mother is that she would lose her self-identity. She also notes that women in the patriarchal system are viewed as ONLY mothers as soon as they give birth. At the end of the video, she states, “I can not be reduced to being just someone’s mom, that would send me over the edge.” This is a statement that Edna would relate to. Her identity was connected to her children, so anything she would have done would have impacted them, causing her to feel guilty for all of her choices. While the ideal ending should have been that Edna learns to be happy with her independence, this ending is much more revealing of the effects of the patriarchy. Edna should have had the freedom to leave her marriage and live however she pleased. But even if she had the bravery of leaving her husband, Robert did not allow her to have the choice of being with whom she pleased. This ending reminds me of the book Dreaming in Cuban, in which the main character, Celia, is abandoned by her family, so she ends her life by walking into the sea. Both Celia and Edna had bad relationships with their children and husbands. The broken connection to their family ultimtaly lead to their psychological and emotional destruction. In The Awakening, Edna tried to be independent, but her conditioning caused her to lose hope and trust in herself. The independence that she gained gave her some mobility, but the price for this was loneliness. Society had already clipped her wings.
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