In my opinion I didn’t like the ending. I don’t think it was either option with some critics viewing her suicide as a failure to escape from conventions of society or that it was a final awakening, ‘a decision to give herself to the sea in a show of strength and independence that defies social expectation’. At the beginning of the book it is saying that she doesn’t like having to follow the norms of the society at the time, with women being mothers and housewives. The book says that even the husband didn’t like how his wife acted, not like she was meant to as she “evinced so little interest in things which concerned him” (8) and that she had a “habitual neglect of the children” (8). He questioned as to “if it was not a mother’s place to look after children, whose on earth was it?” (8) as she wasn’t doing her ‘duty’ as required by the time period. Then she had an awakening “she could not have told why she was crying… an indescribable oppression, which seemed to generate in some unfamiliar part of her consciousness, filled her whole being with vague anguish” (10) which made her realise this is not what she wanted for herself.
Then under the guise of self discovery, she started to have feelings towards another man, Robert, then the feeling of lust for another and then she gained more independence when she moved out of her house and lived by herself. When Robert returned, they got together. Then when Robert was asleep when she returned, rather than what she expected, which was apparently to stay up and wait for her, she went to the beach and killed herself.
The opposing views on this is that it was a failure to escape the societal norms or as a final awakening. In my opinion it was neither. She started by not wanting to play the typical role of a woman in that time period, and she didn’t want to be reliable on the men, so she broke away from that and was more ‘free’ but then she instantly got tied down to 2 men and ‘in love’ with one. Then she killed herself because of the men showing how she still relies on the men in her life to care for her and show her attention. There is no independence in that at all. She is a weak character that needs to rely on others, which is an example of part of how women were meant to be like in society.
Obviously, I am looking at this book from a more modern perspective as maybe during the time this was written it was a great example of feminism but to me if this book is meant to be a feminist novel, the only feminist ideal it shows is that women want to be independent, not that they can successfully be independent- with the exception of Mademoiselle Reiz, who I think is the only strong example of an ‘independent’ women of that time period. The book could easily be labeled as a romance and make more sense. It feels as if the only way the author can think to be feminist is separation from the husband as a first act of independence, an affair and including more men into the story. Obviously, this was written a while ago and the views were different but surely they realise that independence does not mean an affair and a divorce- but not really. In order to make it more feminist, the character of Edna can changed completely and Robert and the other man can be taken out of the book, in order to be more successful.
Evie's Learner Portfolio 