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Edna's Suicide In The Awakening

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The ending of Kate Chopin's novel “The Awakening” has been long debated over whether or not the main character Edna commits suicide in the end. Many critics and readers argue that her death, in the end, was not intentional and rather the consequence of her actions. Others believe that she never actually died in the end and the book ends before she swims back to shore. Contrary to these ideas, I think that Edna's suicide was intentional as she had planned it right after she found Robert's notes saying he was leaving. She planned the suicide that night not specifically wanting to die but feeling as if she had no other choice and death was her last hope at an “awakening”.
After Edna comes home and reads Robert's note on the counter that says …show more content…

Professor Abassi wrote in “The Masculine Sea and the Impossibility of Awakening in Chopin's The Awakening” that contrary to popular belief the sea represents male society and not freedom. However when she says that “I would give my life to my children, but I wouldn't give myself.” (64) makes me believe the sea is not representing men as she would rather die than give up who she is. If Edna was not willing to give up who she was for her children I don't think she would have given up who she is because of defeat but rather because she would rather not live as who she is than continue living as someone she doesn't know. By killing herself in the water I don't think she achieved liberation from her struggles, dying for her was just a last option. However, I also don't think her death was her officially failing to be freed, it was her using her freedom to take control of the last thing in her life that she could. She had all she loved ripped away from her and she knew her death was the only real thing in her life that she had full control over at that point. “Even as a child she had lived her own small life within herself. At a very early period, she had apprehended instinctively the dual life - that outward existence which conforms, the inward life which questions.” (18) Edna has always lived a double life, half what society wants and half what

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I disagree with Margit Stange’s argument that Edna’s suicide as the end of The Awakening is an act of self-ownership. I believe it is because Edna sees no way out of her unhappy situation. Self-ownership, “in the second half of the nineteenth century, signified a wife's right to refuse marital sex—a right feminists were demanding as the key to female autonomy” (Stange). Margit Stange sees this belief, also known as voluntary motherhood, as the reasoning behind Edna’s suicide because she wants to escape motherhood. The act of killing herself frees Edna from all maternal responsibilities, so therefore she is simply participating in the trend of owning herself.

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In the story, the only place where Edna could experience freedom and find her awakening was the sea. Thus, when she commits suicide one can see how the sea was the root for Edna finding her self-discovery. Through suicide individuals can see how it was the only escape for a woman who was living under oppression. Suicide not only shows that oppression was impossible to escape for a woman, but at the the same time it shows that suicide was the only way

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