ciety's' image, letting her independence shine through. She cancels her Tuesday socials and helps out around the house doing little chores. The biggest step she made was her decision to move away from her mansion and into the "pigeon house", a little cottage around corner. After this move she was free to explore her new profound freedom and desires. She succumbed to the passion in her heart and had a meaningless affair with Arobin, a known heartbreaker. She was in control of this new relationship and she loved feeling in control. True, she felt nothing beyond lust for the man but she was able to do as she wished. Her love for Robert Lebrun was truly her biggest obstacle she was to overcome. Every thought and feeling she had sprouted from the love she had for him which kept growing long after the brief summer in Grand Isle. She thought about him always and was in constant yearning for him to return from his escapades in Mexico. When he finally did return, his love for Edna was apparent and he wished to be married to her. Once again she felt trapped, not wishing to become "property" to a man. She just wanted to be with him and love him without having to give up her independence. When she left to assist her friend in her childbearing, she bid him to stay and wait for her. Alas, when she returned he was gone, in his place was a letter. He stated his love for her and his inability to keep interfering with her life and her duties to her husband and children. That was the end of Edna Pontellier. She feels alone, with no one who would understand to confide into. Rather than be forced to live in such a world of tyranny and succumb once again to the mechanical lifestyle she had lived for so long, she chooses death. In death, there are no expectations, no one to impress or be "proper" for, and most importantly she has no one to answer to, except herself. It is all these aspects of the plot, in the story, that make it enticing. It was so rare for a...
