n of her matriarchal position, Edna finds herself acting with a sexual freedom (Arms 149) that leads her down the road to adultery. Kenneth Eble argues, there is reason for her affair in the kind of romantic desire to escape a middle class existence (148) which bind her to husband and family. Her affair with Alcee Arobin kindles in her a new insight that physical love and spiritual love do not go hand in hand. Seyersted confirms in his criticism, that sensuous attraction is impersonal and can be satisfied by a partner she [Edna] does not love (151). However, an extramarital affair is seriously regarded to be taboo in Creole society. Ednas affair is an affirmation that she will not be subjected by the customs of the society in which she lives, but rather she will strive for her emancipation regardless of how the public views her.In typical Creole society, motherhood is a calling for every woman. It is the reason for which a woman lives and her child is the air she breathes. Therefore, having a child annually is quite typical. Larzer Ziff put it best when he said, The Awakening rejected the family as the automatic equivalent of feminine self-fulfillment (149). Edna rejects the conventions of maternity throughout the story. When Ednas husband tells her one of her sons is sick with fever, she retorts by saying that the child did not have one when he went to bed, and refuses to check on her sons current condition. Her idea of motherhood is quite askew from normal female intuition. A woman is bound to her children for many reasons, yet Edna sees her boys as opponents and refuses to live for them and rather for herself (Seyersted 151). She finds no fault in sending her children to stay with their grandmother while she uses the time to pursue her defiant and adulterous acts. However, she soon comes to the realization that patriarchal society is quick to condemn particularly a freedom-seeking woman, who neglects her children since ...
