The Awakening- Part 2 by Chelsea Estes

After finishing the novel, The Awakening, I finally feel that I have an answer to the question for the reason of Edna's unhappiness. She spent most of her life focusing on finding happiness through other people, instead of trying to discover how to be happy with herself. To escape her unhappy home life, and to spite her father, she married Leonce. To escape her unhappy marriage, she looks to Robert and Arobin for fulfillment, happiness, and the longing for true love. Of course, happiness eludes Edna and it seems that the only way to happiness for her in the end, is through death. It is hard for me to completely identify with Edna and her lack of choices in the 19th century. I do feel sorry for her and her overwhelming feelings of sadness and despair, and the fact that her suicide was because she felt she could never truly be in charge of her life. Edna felt the only way to escape her "horrible" life, would be to end it, not thinking of those she would be leaving behind. Yet, I wonder if the character of Edna Pontellier had spent time trying to find happiness not through other people, but through herself and the blessings that she had, she may have been able to find the freedom, which eluded her.