portant thing. Edna lacked the undying devotion of the "mother-woman" towards her children. At the beginning of "The Awakening" Edna confides this fact in Madame Ratignole while sitting on the beach. "It seemed to free her of a responsibility which she blindly assumed and for which fate had not suited her," thinks Edna (Chopin 19). Apparently to Edna, this "mother-woman" quality is bestowed upon certain women, but she is one of the few who does not have it. So, to leave her children in the end was hard, but not nearly as impossible as it would be to some mothers. A "mother-woman" would have had a m
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