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above their young brood. "They idolized their children, worshipped their husbands, and esteemed it a holy privilege to efface themselves as individuals and grow wings as ministering angels" (473). Edna was admittedly not a "mother-woman." She tried to explain the way she felt about parenting to the supreme "mother-woman," Madame Ratignolle. "I would give up the unessential; I would give my money, I would give my life for my children; but I wouldn't give myself" (504). Unfortunately, giving herself was exactly what the Creole society demanded of her. Edna lost herself in the swell of the ocean to keep herself from being taken by others.

Edna had to fight viciously to keep herself whole. She resented being owned by others. The Creole society considered women the property of their husbands. Leonce was Edna's master; he treated her and spoke to her as if she was a small child. He was proud of her, not because of who she was as an individual, but because he was proud of all attractive things that he owned. "He greatly valued his possessions, chiefly because they were his, and derived genuine pleasure from contemplating a painting, a statuette, a rare lace curtainno matter whatafter he had bought it and placed it among his household goods" (506). Edna resented feeling like an object of Leonce's household. She was not a painting or a lace curtain; she was an individual woman, a person. Leonce's shallow understanding of her was an insult. She resented feeling like his property. She wanted to be her own woman, belonging to no one but herself. "I am no longer one of Mr. Pontellier's possessions to dispose of or not." She declared, "I give myself where I choose" (552).

Edna's awakening was a reclaiming of herself. She would not be told what to do. She would not be treated like a child or like chattel. She was an individual and she demanded to be viewed that way. "I suppose this is what you would call unwomanly; but I have got into the habit of expressing myself. It doesn't matter to me, and you may think me unwomanly if you like" (551). She did not mind what people thought about her. She was not wary of what they gossiped about her, as long as she was living as completely herselfwith no compromises. "By all the codes which I am aquatinted with, I am a devilishly wicked specimen of the sex." She explains, "But some way I can't convince myself that I am. I must think about it" (532).

She thought about her awakening constantly. She could not stop questioning herself and

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