Edna Pontellier's Suicide In The Awakening

The main character, Edna Pontellier, belongs to a Creole society. Creoles are the descendants of French or Spanish, born in Louisiana. The woman in this kind of society is the ideal Puritan woman who is submissive to her husband and venerates her children. In better words, she sees her husband as a semi-God and gives her entire life to look after her children. This kind of woman usually comes from a big family who, from the very beginning, is educated to take a special care to her appearance and receives a thorough religious formation that ensures chastity until marriage.

At the beginning of the novel we can see how this kind of society is explained and how from the beginning Edna does not represent the kind of woman present in it:

In short,

Besides, the reason why men committed suicide was mostly due to money, they were obsessed with the idea of earning money and they lived mainly for that reason. We can see portrayed here Edna's husband, Léonce Pontellier as he has always business trips. In our opinion, we think that related to Edna, it is possible that the suicide would be the right decision due to the fact that it is too late to be the perfect wife and the perfect mother that the Creole society has in mind. She does not imagine herself being an artist as Mademoiselle Reisz and also, she could ask for help to the doctor but she is conscious that it was too late to go. Therefore, the society of the nineteenth century was not accustomed to see an independent woman who wants to live apart from the rules of the nature and the society. The suicide is the only way that gives her freedom and independent because, although it sounds a bit macabre, she is the one who has the last decision. However, this suicide and the choice of this place is connected to Robert Lebrun, his truly lover. Grand Isle is where they met and where she decides to put an end to her