onclusion of the awakening, Edna Pontellier takes her feeling of despondency and molds it into indifference, in turn making her life take on a new feeling of unreality (Bogard, np). Consequently she gives up, with the response of futility, and in the end turns her back to her second conscious awakening; through her own withdrawal at first which then led to her suicide. Her struggle throughout the novel is not melodramatic, nor is it a childish fancy, nor fragile in nature. Throughout the novel it is existent and touching. Kenneth Eble states that “when she walks into the sea, it does not leave a reader with the sense of sin punished...”(np) and the it is her own redefined sense of self-awareness which gives her face and significance. Carley Rees Bogard in contrast makes the strong argument :Because she is so totally alone in the end, because no one understand her desire to redefine herself outside traditional societal roles for women, because no one is meeting her newly felt needs, because she is unwilling to compromise, because she has not yet had time to develop her inner resources to sustain her through such alienation, she is defeated... (np.)Edna Pontellier in the end does surrender to her utter inability to mold the world around her, instead of the compromising molding of herself, is indeed a obvious defeat. But it was through realization of the life she lived in that she fought for true happiness and found her answer. It, her freedom, was by all means unattainable in the physical world. But through her efforts she reached a subconscious level in which she discovered that her desire was the cause of her suffering and what kept her from being truly happy. Many philosophers agree that life is suffering eased by moments of happiness which they merely speck our lives when a desire is met only to be replaced by another desire. Edna found a release from desire which in her mentality and awareness was the only truly way out....
