The Awakening

I read The Awakening during my junior year of high school, but reading and analyzing it as a sophomore in college has been somewhat different. I have been able to appreciate and understand the story much more this second time around. Many people in class who have written a blog about this passage have focused on Edna as the one of the changing women becoming more prevalent in society at that time. But before Edna expressed characteristics of the "new woman," a free spirit with the desire to escape the "entrapment" of her room, she portrayed that of the obedient and faithful ideal woman. Since i read this reading online I do not know the exact page number of the quote which says, "The fact is I am getting a little afraid of John. He seems very queer sometimes, and even Jennie has an inexplicable look. It strikes me occasionally, just as a scientific hypothesis,--that perhaps it is the paper! I have watched John when he did not know I was looking, and come into the room suddenly on the most innocent excuses, and I've caught him several times looking at the paper! And Jennie too. I caught Jennie with her hand on it once." This goes against the ideas of independence and aptitude to women began to fight for in this time period. Edna's obvious fear and discomfort toward her husband, in particular when it comes to his studying the wallpaper, is an example of the doubt and lack of confidence before she began taking a step in the direction of the "new woman." I feel as though this dramatic shift in the main character's personality illustrates her uncertainty of becoming this new women, but in the end feels the pressure of the woman stuck in the wallpaper and wants to get out before she becomes as stuck as the woman she imagines.