The Role Of Edna Pontellier's Suicide In The Awakening

In The Awakening, written by Kate Chopin, there is an astounded amount of controversy over the ending, in which the main character, Edna Pontellier “awakens” and decides to take her life into an abyss of water. Many believe her action was in response to her unfulfilling life. Others argue that her courage to escape the tragedies of her life was a heroic idea. In agreement with the last argument, Edna was victorious in her decision to escape the tragic implications that faced her in every aspect of her life. In Edna’s “awakening” to free herself, these actions are what make her decision noble and victorious. Edna was noble and victorious due to her courage to escape, her strong role in encouraging feministic views during this time period, and

shining a light on an awakening for feminine power in centuries to come.
Edna’s courage to escape such a tragic life is a major reason why her actions at the end of the novel can be seen as noble and victorious. Growing up, Edna had to have a sense of security between her, as well as an independent mindset. “Mrs.Pontellier was not a woman given to confidences, a characteristic hitherto contrary to her nature. Even as child she had lived her own small life all within herself”(Chopin). From a very young age Edna is seen as independent. She had no choice but to continue to encourage herself to live and persevere. “[Because Edna] has cast aside traditional roles and broken Creole social and religious custom in order to define herself, she cannot find others who understand and support her. She has chosen not to live for others, but she refuses to choose to live without others”(Bogard). Edna’s courage is seen as heroic throughout the novel, but her final decision to take her life, is unbounded in the courage it shows. She was caught in lifestyle that limited her decisions as a woman most importantly. Her courage to descend into an abyss was what it took in this time period for people to realize that women were in a false system of society that limited their courage to be powerful.
In a society that victimizes women to be less than successful, Edna encouraged women with her spontaneous actions to over come this moral disposition, and strive to break the barrier that men set for women to never cross.
Nevertheless, Edna Pontellier succeeds in giving birth to a new self even though the fact that she cannot live on earth as this new self is tragic. The triumph of The Awakening lies in Chopin's depicting, when others did not, the conflicts faced by women who wish to become artists. Courageously, she built in her novel a bridge from past to future so that women might find their way across. Like her heroine, she too was a pontellier, a bridge maker.
With the statement made by Carol Stone, one can agree that the character Chopin creates, establishes a bridge for women in a culture cultivated for only success by men.
Edna not only aided in strengthening the views of women positively, but she was able to create new sense of feminism during this time period. “Edna Pontellier, the main character in The Awakening, is a wife and mother, but more importantly, she is an artist in search of female freedom, sexuality, and creativity” (Brantley). In saying, Edna Pontellier’s final decision to take her life was not only heroic but a giant step for feminist beliefs and women’s rights as well.
Edna’s actions can not only be seen as heroic, but also as monumental for women and their ability to break the barrier between women and men in this time period. She has to choose between allowing what is socially acceptable to define her happiness, or break away from the culture of this creole society, and create an identity for herself.
“Edna commits suicide by walking out, naked, into the ocean, realizing that "for the first time in her life she stood naked in the open air, at the mercy of the sun, the breeze that beat upon her, and the waves that invited her." She thinks: "How strange and awful it seemed to stand naked under familiar world it had never known." This act of suicide is a positive embracing of freedom, an act of re-birth”.
Brantley shares with us, that her suicide was not one of selfish desires, but a positive embracement of freedom.

One can argue that suicide is an act of selfishness, but for Edna, this was the first step in initiating a re-birth as woman in a culture in favor of only the male kind. “Edna could exist only in a female role of limitation. In death, she symbolically enters the realm of nature as she wades into 'the sea', and becomes enfolded in its vast space of innumerable waves. Heroically, Edna escapes oppressive ideology, but tragically, does so only in death”(Bai). In response to Bai, Edna’s death is a tragic decision, but her desire to escape this false concept of men supremacy is heroic. Edna is a pioneer in the thought of women being able to carry themselves as individuals of success with no limitation. She was determined, and had an outlook on her decision as a detrimental resolution to her suffering in this fallacious society. “But if writing helps us to re-map our place in the universe, tracing the histories and contexts of texts like The Awakening reconfirms that promise of ever larger meanings”(Ewell, Menke). In this statement one can realize not only the importance of the novel, but the belief in why Edna’s actions at the end of the book are not only courageous, but also noble and victorious. Ewell and Menke agree in the decision that to leave a mark in history, drastic measures may have to be taken. Edna Pontellier swims to her freedom, and creates a bridge for respected feminist views, as well as the importance of women in this Creole

society.
In the novel, The Awakening, Kate Chopin works through the protagonist, Edna Pontellier to establish a view of the reality of women during this time period. In this Creole society, many women were trapped in a system to make decisions based on their families and not themselves. When Edna decides to live for herself, and make a decision that could possibly be monumental for women to come, it allows the reader an insight in her courage and drives to want more for herself and women. Edna is seen as noble and victorious not only because her courage to take her life, but because of the repercussions that came of her suicide. She shined a light on feministic views, as well as a future for women to become successful even if it means breaking away from a traditional outlook on a particular sex.