Edna Pontellier's Suicide In The Awakening

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Edna Pontellier’s suicide through swimming into the sea, is her final awakening and strongest display of defiance to society’s confining norms. When Edna talks to Dr. Mandalet, she mentions that in order to attain her way of life she would be willing to “trample upon the lives, the hearts, the prejudices” of others (TA 105). But, she cannot trample upon those of her children. To Edna, her children would “drag her into the soul’s slavery for the rest of her days” by reminding her of her motherly duty to them (TA 108). So, Edna comes up with “a way to elude” her children and decisively escape all of society’s confinements, by suiciding (TA 108). On the beach, when Edna “cast the unpleasant, pricking” bathing suit off her on the beach, it symbolises her completely discarding all the unpleasant social norms. …show more content…
Edna felt like a “newborn creature, opening its eyes in a familiar world that it had never known” - completely awakening into her sense of independence from society (TA 108). When she starts to swim out to sea, terror momentarily grips her in fear she would not regain to shore, yet she “did not look back now, but went on and on” (TA 108). The shore is a metaphor for societal conventions and the expanse of the sea a metaphor for her independence. Earlier in the novel, when she swam out to the sea, she was struck with terror and swam back because she could not resolve to cut ties with society. In her suicide in the sea, she demonstrated the death of her social being, and the full awakening of her independence. Also, drowning in the sea is a baptist practice of rebirth and alludes to her ‘final

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