The awakening

The Awakening is an interesting tale deatiling the thoughts, feelings, and everyday life of a 28-year old named Edna. Edna's life is lack luster. She has a loving husband who buys her nice things and cares for her. She has a pretty house filled with paintings and tapestries, yet something is missing. Edna resents her kids at times and merely tends to them out of duty, yet she is fond of them while they are away and misses them. During Summer vacation Edna develops a seemingly strong affection for the young Robert. She spends much of her time with him and is heart broken when he leaves suddenly on whim for Mexico. The attention and patience Robert exhibits towards her seems to be what her husband is missing, as he often gets irritated with her. Edna's "Awakening" seems to catalyze when she starts crying while listening to Mrs. Reisz plays the piano. "The piano sent a keen tremor down Mrs. Pontellier's spinal column." After this Robert suggests that the people listening to the music in the hall go for an evening swim. Edna had been trying to swim all summer and decided with this new found feeling of courage and strength, that she would just go for it, and she ended up going out too far for comfort. She felt a brush with death and retreated to land. In my opinion this was the unraveling of her "awakening", from then on she allowed her feelings for Robert to grow. Her speech towards her husband became more direct and forceful, disallowing him to talk down to her. She began to let her hair down a little and began to exemplify some of the characteristics of a "new woman".