In those times, a woman who was demanding social, economic and political equality, or at least trying to overcome her traditional conventional role dictated by the society, was scornfully looked at. The reader gets the same impression after having read Mr. Pontellier’s consultation with Dr. Mandelet. In their conversation, they did not regard Edna (their topic) to be a respectable human being with her own rights, but a supposed-to-be Victorian woman who is just a little bit moody.
Nevertheless, Edna does not pay attention to her husband’s protests and driven by her newly gained independence, she packs her belongings and escapes from the life she used to live. This can be regarded as the most important step in her life. It must have required great courage and energy (not that typical for a woman in those times) to face the old-fashioned public opinion and rather an out-of-date but still very strong and influential conception of the traditional stereotypical female role. And Edna goes even further. She begins life of her own, moves into a smaller apartment, abandons her husband (!) and starts a love affair with a disreputable man-about-town, Alcée Arobin, even though eventually she realizes that he means little to her (alike from Robert).
Most of all, she hopes to start a fresh new life with Robert. She says to him: “I love you. It was you who awoke me last summer out of a life-long, stupid dream” (p. 593). But Robert leaves her (“because he loves her”, he explains in a letter), not understanding what she needs either. During the long, sleepless night that follows, Edna realizes that eventually she will forget her love for even Robert. She decides that her only escape/solution is the suicide. This act, therefore, might be understood as the ultimate symbol of revolt or “awakening” (Edna symbolically chooses to die in the ocean, she returns to the sea, to the place where she met Robert and where she has learned to swim).
To conclude, Edna Pontellier, having detached herself from the society’s conventions, serves as a lasting icon of women’s independence, though it would take years for the society to look at a woman like Edna with anything but a scorn and despise. Awakened Edna takes advantage of her vitality with a freedom of thought uncommon for women of her time, and her character persuades us, the readers, to reexamine our lives, to look at it from the perspective of someone who has just opened his/her eyes. Kate Chopin’s female character suggests the capacity of human beings to live independently, proudly and respectably, facing the community pressures, patriarchal power and maternal deprivation.