reams and needs really were. At a very early age, Edna "had apprehended instinctively the dual life – that outward existence which conforms, the inward life which questions" (Chopin 529). During her awakening, Edna faced moral, emotional, and intellectual conflicts. "One of these days," she said, "I'm going to pull myself together for a while and think – try to determine what character of a woman I am, for, candidly, I don't know. By all the codes which I am acquainted with, I am a devilishly wicked specimen of the sex. But some way I can't convince myself that I am. I must think about it" (Chopin 584). She took a realistic look at her faults and unconsciously compared herself to two very different role models in her life.
             Edna realized and accepted, without guilt, that she was not a "mother-woman" (Chopin 525). These were women that "idolized their children, worshiped their husbands, and esteemed it a
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