In the novel The Awakening by Kate Chopan, Edna Pontellier struggles with two powerful forces that tug her life in opposite directions. The forces are so powerful and all-consuming that at the end of the novel Edna commits suicide.
             The first and overall dominant force is one of passion, sexual desire and freedom. For example, Edna loves Robert a great deal, however Edna has children and a husband. She spends her days with Edward because she feels "it was so much more natural to have him stay, when it was not absolutely required to leave her." (p 67) When Robert leaves for Mexico, Chopan's descriptions of Edna's emotions illustrate Edna's love for Robert without it being blatantly said. "Robert's going had some way taken the brightness, the color, the meaning out of everything." (p 77) Edna's yearn for freedom is also symbolized through Chopan's use of water throughout the novel. "The voice of the sea is seductive; never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander for a spell in abysses of solitude; to lose itself in mazes of inward contemplation.
             "The voice of the sea speaks to the soul. The touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace." (p 25) When Edna swims out to sea alone for the first time, she finally recognizes her own strength, which serves as an important part of the novel. Another example of Edna's pull toward sensual freedom is shown through her admirer Alcèe Arobin. "Alcèe Arobin was nothing to her. Yet his presence, his manners, the warmth of his glances, and above all the touch of his lips on her hand had acted like a narcotic upon her." (p 129) Edna dislikes balancing the appearance of being lady like and appropriate while also dealing with her natural female desires for sex and romance.
             On the other side of Edna's fantasies is her lif
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