Renewal

Rash

• Throughout The Awakening, Edna acts on a whim toward what she wants at the moment.
• She fails to think before she haphazardly performs her actions, often resulting in poor situations either for herself or for others.

Rash

• It can be argued that Edna was acting rashly in the final chapter when she swims out to her death. Was she planning to die, or was her death the result of a sudden urge to swim?
• "In a sweeping passion she seized a glass vase from the table and flung it upon the tiles of the hearth. She wanted to destroy something."

Empowered

• Edna's awakening sees her experience a radical change in behavior motivated by a new sense of empowerment.
• Edna's new confidence and refusal to take orders baffles her peers. Leonce is distraught and embarassed, Mademoiselle Reisz is intrigued, and Robert and Alcee are both, well, somewhat turned on.

Empowered

• "It shocked him. When Mr. Pontellier became rude, Edna grew insolent. She had resolved to never take another step backward. 'I feel like painting... Let me alone; you bother me.'"
• For the first time in her life, she realizes that nobody can control her thoughts, actions, or interests except her.

Newfound

• Edna discovered more of her true self than she thought possible. Her awakening revealed how she truly views the world and interacts with the people in it.
• There are aspects of her new behavior that shock her in their audacity. Her newfound freedom excites and releases her from her former life.

Newfound

• "She perceived that her will had blazed up stubborn and resistant...she could not realize why or how she should have yielded feeling as she did then."
• Edna became a different form of herself,not one that needs to reprimanded by a man but instead someone who yearns for freedom.

Emergence

• Throughout the story Edna slowly breaks her mold and strives to free herself from her personal binds and those that society places upon her.
• She begins to rebel against society in every action she takes and every thought she thinks. Edna seeks a release from her cage.

Emergence

• "She was becoming herself and daily casting aside that fictitious self which we assume like a garment with which to appear before the world."
• More and more Edna seeks to find herself. She expresses herself with her painting and her clothes as well as the company she keeps. She searches for people that will allow her take such freedoms as she desires.

Waning

• As Edna begins to explore her new freedoms she sheds her former facade and begins to show the world the true Edna.
• She does not miss her former self although there are aspects that she would rather not completely abandon. Her children for example. She does not live for them nor will she ever, but she does love and enjoy them.

Waning

• "There was with her a feeling of having descended in the social scale, with a corresponding feeling of ascent in the spiritual."
• As Edna develops as a character she loses the will to keep her social prerogatives at the top of her to do list. She lives for herself now and for love, but not for the scrying eye of society.

Artist

• Edna expresses her renewal and new found individualism through artistic ability.
• When she paints, her hand holds the brush, her will creates the image.

Artist

• Edna befriends Mademoiselle Reisz, another artist, and an outlier in terms of social norms.
• She says, "the artist must possess the courageous soul... the soul that dares and defies."

Laggard

• Edna is a laggin lass. In other words, she excels at wasting time.
• Some of her leisurely activities include strolling through the town, visiting friends, painting, watching horse races, flirting with guys, andgazing at the ocean. Although not bad activities, they lack productivity.

Laggard

• She seems to be lagging behind the rest of the world. Maybe this lifestyle is a part of her renewal, the desire to slow down and enjoy the small things.
• In her renewal she experiences a crisis of meaning. "It was not despair, but it seemed to her as if life were passing by, leaving its promise broken and unfulfilled."