She runs into him at the pianist’s apartment a few days later. One day, Edna learns from Mademoiselle Reisz that Robert is due back in New Orleans. She throws a beautiful going-away party, but is troubled throughout by feelings of blankness and despair. By selling her paintings, she can become financially independent.
She loves her new freedom and decides to move to a smaller house, moving out of her current home and leaving her husband. Their relationship is a source of confusion and anxiety to her.Įdna’s husband leaves for a long business trip and her children go to stay with their grandmother. She doesn’t love him, but she is strongly physically attracted to him. Edna also becomes romantically involved with Arobin, a fashionable young man with a bad reputation. Edna’s concerned husband consults with Doctor Mandelet, a wise family friend, who advises him to wait it out.
Her friendship with Madame Ratignolle disintegrates somewhat, but she goes often to see Mademoiselle Reisz, who gives Edna good advice, shows her Robert’s letters (which mention his love for her), and plays beautiful pieces on the piano. Edna begins to neglect her household and her children so that she can devote her days to painting, reading, and seeing friends. In September the Pontelliers return to New Orleans. Edna spends the rest of the summer longing for his company. Soon, Robert leaves Grand Isle for Mexico, where he hopes to forget the illicit romance. Her friendship with Robert becomes romantically charged. That night is the culmination of her awakening, her critical, thoughtful examination of the social world and of her inner life. Later that same night, Edna conquers her fear of the sea and swims far into the ocean. One night, Edna is moved to tears at a party by the music of Mademoiselle Reisz, a sharp-voiced unmarried woman who most people dislike. The third-person narrator, whose voice blends somewhat with Edna’s inner voice, begins to remark on the artificiality of the other women and to question Edna’s habitual obedience to her foolish husband. They spend almost every day in each other’s company, strolling on the beach and exchanging quiet jokes and observations. Her friendship with Robert, though, has been blossoming. From the beginning, the reader perceives that all is not harmonious in the Pontellier family: Edna seems bored by her children and frustrated with Léonce, who is silly, ill-tempered, and inattentive (his lavish gifts notwithstanding). Her husband Léonce is often away on business, so she spends most of her time with a beautiful, shallow friend named Adèle Ratignolle and a charming young man named Robert Lebrun. The story begins at Grand Isle, a ritzy vacation spot near New Orleans, where Edna Pontellier is summering with her husband and two children.
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