Dissatisfied Edna from The AwakeningAs evidenced by Kate Chopin's The Awakening and other novels of the 1800s, women writers of this period seemed to feel very repressed. Léonce Pontellier seemed to love his wife and treated her as one would treat a beloved pet. At the beginning of the story, he describes him as considering her a "valuable personal possession". He doesn't fully value her as a human being, but rather as property. However, he expects her to be everything he thinks she should be. Her children also expect total sacrifice from her. She clearly feels unfulfilled in life and inadequate in many ways. She doesn't feel like an artist, she doesn't feel like a satisfied wife or mother. Since she doesn't feel like she has a real life, that's why it's easy to commit suicide. It is at the end, when she views the sea as an endless, rolling meadow, that she sees a life without restrictions. She finally feels free and at peace. Awakening is an emotionally unsatisfying story. It is the story of a woman, Edna, who tries without success...