Awakening Ch. 30-34

In chapters 30-34, Edna has her farewell dinner before she moves into the pigeon house. At this gathering, Edna looks regal but she is alone. She starts to get bored and starts thinking of the unattainable Robert. While she is thinking about Robert, Victor starts playing Edna and Robert’s song and this causes Edna to become upset. It seems she is messing with three men. She is having a fling with Arobin while she thinks she is in love with Robert. On top of this, she is not being truthful with her husband since she has two other men. She obviously does not know what she wants. I think she should settle down and think so she can realize what she wants.

In addition, in this section we see how appearance is important to Mr. Pontellier. He hears that his wife is thinking about moving and he wants to stop this nonsense. It seems he is more worried about what society will think of the situation financially instead of sexually. He remodels the house to save appearances and to make his wife stay. However, the pigeon house pleased Edna too much and the remodeling did not persuade her. She can feel herself breaking away from the society because she is forming self-reliance. She realizes that this could make her go down on the social scale, but at the same time is increasing her spirituality. She is now seeing and apprehending things herself.

Also, Robert comes home in this section. Edna expects things to be like they used to be and she even expects more. However, her predictions at the moment are wrong. He says the reason why he returned was because of business, not because of her. Edna learns that Robert had been home for 2 days before she saw him and when she did see him it was accidentally. This causes her to think he does not love/like her the same way she does him. It will be interesting to see if the act Robert is putting up will last or not.