e, so that they might marry. Edna is surprised and disappointed at his thought. “You have been a very, very foolish boy, wasting your time dreaming of impossible things when you speak of Mr. Pontellier setting me free! I am no longer one of Mr. Pontellier’s possessions to dispose of or not. I give myself where I choose. If he were here to say, ‘Here, Robert, take her and be happy; she is yours,’ I should laugh at you both” (McQuade, 1727). Edna then realizes that Robert wants her to be his “mother woman.” Her imagination has let her believe that Robert understood her. She learns that he comprehends her needs to be recognized as an individual human being, a person as well as a woman, no better than Leonce. Edna stays up all night thinking. She thinks of her choices in life. Edna swims out to sea the morning after.Why did Edna choose to end her life? This question can be answered in a variety of ways. It is clear that Edna has begun to discover herself. She wants a life she can’t define or shape. Edna at this point has many choices. She has three men in her life, Leonce, Robert, and Arobin. She won’t choose any of these men. They all expect her to be the socially acceptable wife and mother, like Adele, a role that she has struggled with and fought against all along. She realizes that no man could ever understand why she wants to escape being owned by her husband and children. She could possibly have moved out, and lived on her own, which she partially did by moving to the “pigeon house.” Her friend Mademoiselle Reisz is a woman who lives alone. Her personality has been described as dark, lonely and miserable. Edna does not want to play any of these parts for the rest of her life, so she chooses death. In death she escapes her marriage, society's rules, and her family, and owns herself again. This is not the traditional womanly “happy ending” of ...
