Much controversy surrounds the ending of Kate Chopin's The Awakening and for good reason; the novel can be used to support two completely opposing views. On the one hand Edna Pontellier's suicide can be seen as the final culmination of Edna's awakening as she comes to see herself and her place in reality and begins to completely and ultimately control her own destiny rather than give up what she has gained . In contrast, Edna's end can be seen as a terrible failure that makes a mockery not only of her awakening, but also of the message Kate Chopin intends to convey. Multiple passages and ideas from the novel can be used to support each view and in some cases, depending on the interpretation, both. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay It's easy for readers to dismiss Edna's suicide as a failure, because frankly, it's unpleasant. People instinctively shy away from death, and the strength and growth that Edna shows throughout the novel makes her death even more painful and at the same time makes it seem wrong. The last chapter, in which Edna drowns herself, contains much evidence to support the negative view of Edna's death. He soon reveals the crux of his failure; she has shed the entire world she had lived in, but she is unable to define a world she can enter. First of all, she talks about having discarded the men in her life. “'Today it's Arobin, tomorrow it will be someone else. It makes no difference to me, I don't care about Leonce Pontellier...'” he says when he realizes that “There was no human being that she wanted near her. " except Robert; and she realized that the day would come when he too and the thought of him would disappear from her existence, leaving her alone. (pg. 188-189) He then explains his children as "antagonists" who sought to enslave his soul, "But," he confides, "he knew a way to evade them." (p. 189) She eventually escapes the mental slavery by men and her children that society had attempted to impose on her, but she was unprepared to suddenly lose everything in her world, because she had nowhere to go and was depressed because "there was nothing in the world she wanted." it was direct and therefore ended up in limbo. There are several instances in the final chapter where Edna herself holds the view of herself as a failure. While walking on the beach he states that there is no living thing to be seen, but in the next sentence he describes a bird with a broken wing falling into the sea. In the novel, birds are often symbols of women and Edna in particular. Considering the bird with a broken wing as Edna, we see that although the bird flies free, it is too injured to continue and so dies at sea. The fact that Edna states that no living thing can be seen may imply that she already considers herself symbolically "dead" due to her failure and her swimming simply completes the process, as does the bird's dive into the sea. The image of the seductive sea gives further credence to this idea as it provides a definitive escape from the struggle and despondency that he cannot overcome. The sea is also described as "coiled serpents", which are a classic symbol of seductive evil. (p. 189) Perhaps Edna's clearest admission of failure is her thought to Mademoiselle Reisz who sneers at her act of suicide, "And you call yourself an artist! What pretensions, lady! The artist must possess the 'courageous soul who dares and challenges.' (p. 190) This last imagination clearly shows that Edna knew she had failed, she knew she was deficient. Then he admits that in Doctor Mandelet resided the.