Awakening Ch. 35-39 (THE END)

In the last chapters of the novel, I think Edna is as confused as ever. She really wants Robert to show her some sort of affection, but he does not. This causes her to question him and she makes the move on him by kissing him. Robert reacts to this and tells her his feelings towards her. He tells her how he loves her and how he was thinking about her the whole time while he was in Mexico. When Edna has to leave to go help deliver a baby, she asks him to stay until she returned. However, Robert does not do this. Instead, he leaves the house leaving behind a note saying “I love you. Good-by—because I love you.” This is implying that he realizes he can never have her as his wife and that he needs to leave before anything bad happens. Edna is devastated.

The next summer Edna is back at Grand Isle, but she is there by herself. Probably before she arrived, Edna thinks about how she would never giver herself to anyone and would never sacrifice herself for her children. It seems she comes to an epiphany that there is not one thing in the world she wants besides Robert, whom she cannot have (it took her long enough to realize/come to a conclusion about something). She could have her husband, Arobin, her children, or someone else and it would not matter. As soon as Edna gets to the island, she wants to go for a swim. When she arrives at the beach, she takes off all of her clothes and is nude. This is the first time she has ever done it. It is like she has nothing to hide and she felt like a newborn baby that was opening its eyes for the first time. She goes out far into the ocean and starts to get tired. As she is drowning, she once again thinks about how she could not be a possession to her husband or her children. She ends up drowning with the idea that there was no purpose or meaningful role in life for her (outcast).

In the last part of the book, once again there is a reference to a bird. This time is a bird with a broken wing that can no longer fly and it falls to the ocean. This is an image of Edna. She no longer has the strength to fly and is falling just like the bird.