The interpretation of Edna Pontellier’s suicide at the end of Kate Chopin’s novel The Awakening needs a two-fold approach: on the one hand Edna fails life because she cannot find a for her bearable way to go on with her life - to “resolve the conflict between the urge toward self-realization and the constricting conventions of society” 1 on the other hand, however, “the ultimate realization that she has awakened to is that the only way she can save herself is to give up her life (.) she surrenders her life in order to save herself,” 2 which means that the suicide is not a failure at all because for all that she is still able to save her essential inner-self.īy committing suicide Edna does exactly what she already has predicted earlier: “I would give up the unessential (.) I would give up my life (.) but I wouldn’t give myself.” 3 Even though she says these words in connection with her children, they give a major reason why Edna chooses death.
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