The only person controlling your life should be the one living it. Kate Chopin proves this statement in her novel "The Awakening". Edna was a woman living in her late twenties in the Victorian era. She went on a summer vacation to Cheniere Carninada, where she met Robert, the man she grew to love and respect. Edna was married to Leonce Pontellier who valued her as a possession, and nothing more to that. Edna, realizing her life to Leonce was nothing but an object awakened her, which slowly led to her death. Edna learns how to love and cherish each day as time goes by she grows more and more apart from her lover. Edna awakens emotionally, sexually, and socially.
             Edna's emotional awakening made her recognize her inner self and true feelings. She no longer had any feelings for Leonce Pontellier. "I am no longer one of Mr. Pontellier's possessions to dispose of or not."(178) She realizes the treatment she receives from him is not love. She only married him because she wanted to rebel against her parents. Like Wilber Fisk Tillett said in his criticism "we might conveniently divide or subject into these three heads: (1) the southern woman before the war; (2) the southern woman during the war; (3) the southern woman since the war." "Edna, a Kentucky Presbyterian, had impetuously and somewhat rebelliously married the Louisiana Creole, Leonce Pontellier." Edna wanted to be independent and free and she did not want anyone to possess her. Mademoiselle Reisz's music created emotional imagery for Edna. "[Mademoiselle Reisz]...had a way of evoking pictures in her mind." "The very passions themselves were aroused within her soul, swaying it, lashing it as the waves daily beat upon her splendid body." (44) Mademoiselle Reisz's music would make Edna think inside herself about life. The images that she saw in her images represented her life and they all suggested that she should "Get out" of her everyday habitat.
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