Edna’s detachment from reality causes her to fail not only as a woman, but as a human being. She tosses herself to the side as an individual and trades herself in for some sort of Princess—she happily disposes of her time on what amounts to be nothing. In place of what could be a phenomenally huge conquest for a human being, and certainly an empowering experience for a troubled Victorian housewife, Edna instead adapts absolute indifference as a way of life—indifference towards everyone around her, aside from her distant fantasy of Robert. The book completely places focus on the most trivial ins and outs of Edna’s new uninhibited lifestyle, with a few descriptions of her apparent anxiety/depression strategically sprinkled here and there to somewhat justify her behavior, and yet it recurs in spite of her fruitless antics as though its attempting to urge the reader to egg her on for more outlandish stunts.
When considering the means by which Edna seeks to alleviate her troubled emotions, one cannot help but realize that she is destined to fail. The reader endearingly turns each page, however, hoping for that awakening to take place within Edna; readers want to see Edna triumph. One finishes the story only to find that, though the entire story were some sort of sick joke, Edna was in fact ‘awakened’ within the first ten pages--her discovery of this 'vague anguish' was her awakening. Every frivolous kiss, every impulse, every whim, is a conscious indulgence. Robert awakens within Edna the realization that she feels a heavy emotional burden; after she faces this, she willingly abandons herself to fate and her warped idea of freedom.
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