ge for Edna's sexual and spiritual awakening in the novel. Although not shown outright, the atmosphere itself is voluptuous, and a place of strange and passionate moods (TCLC vol. 14 – 73)). This is ironic because of the Creole society in which it is placed. Primarily, Creole women's acceptance of maternity as totally adequate to the capacities of their nature carried with it the complements of a fierce chastity, a frankness of speech on sexual matters, a mature ease among men and a frank an unguilty pleasure in sensual indulgence. These morals and lifestyle were not made for Edna and the emphasis which is placed on the naturally chaste Creole society in which she lives dramatizes her plight (149) Edna never feels at home with the Creoles who she married into.
             The first stage of Edna's awakening is her abandoned status as a devoted wife and mother. At the beginning of the novel, Edna exists in a sort of semi-conscious state. She is comfortable in her marriage to Léonce and unaware of her own feelings and ambitions yet Edna has always been a romantic. She was at one point enamored with a cavalry officer at a very young age, in love with a man visiting a neighboring plantation in her teens, and infatuated with a tragedian as a young woman. But she saw her marriage to Léonce as the end to her life of passion and the beginning of a life of responsibility. Thus, she uses sex as a means of self-expression and liberation. She becomes more sexually aware and a more independent women, responsible to only her own urges and passions. Although she expected her dreams of romance to disappear along with her youth, her fantasies and yearnings only remain latent, re-emerging on Grand Isle in the form of her passion for Robert Lebrun. The people Edna meets and the experiences she has on Grand Isle awaken desires and urges for music, sexual satisfaction, art, and freedom that she can no longer bear to kee...