not have been put to the unpleasantness of reading about her and the temptations she trumped up for herself. (96) Irony plays an inexplicable and majestic part in the conclusion of The Awakening. One can say with confidence that in a story a protagonist, or heroin in this case, is expected to fulfill a happily ever after ending not only from a repetitious guarantee but from the incisive determination by such character, whom through hardships, earned it. Edna Pontellier fails at this although her hardships were anything but insignificant. Furthermore, this irony plays in a different manner since it is clearly engraved as a harsh reality that “women’s chances for spiritual fulfillment are sadly limited in a society...” (Kate Chopin, np) where they are reduced to the value of mere material possessions. Such as the Creole Society was at the time. Kate Chopin’s The Awakening carries this relatively clear social implication through its ironic ending.Using this scenario of social implications, Edna’s choices are obviously limited. Not all pointing to certain death yet unpromising of spiritual fulfillment, the decisions which Edna faces might have made more sense in the end but also might have delivered more negative reactions. As explained by Carley Rees Bogard: Chopin...[had]...shown the only...[choices]...available-consuming life of Adele Ratignolle or the lonely existence of Mlle. Reiz. For Edna these choices are equally impossible; they are compromises of the radical vision she has conceived. She has not the patience or masochism for the former or the ascetic discipline for the latter.(np) The battle of the sexes takes part here. For instance, in the respective situation of a male hero, he is expected by all means to make the choice which Mlle. Reiz has accepted. Yet a heroine is by all means expected to succumb to her weakness, come to her senses, and reenter her the lifestyle of marriage and motherhood in...
