 She’d rather flagrantly flout convention and make no shrewd plans or excuses for herself.  The narrator presents us with the result of an awakening that combines awareness with rebellion.  We are told that Edna is “casting aside that fictitious self which we assume like a garment with which to appear before the world” (79).  And how deeply does Edna’s rejection of group standards run?  When the subject of children comes up between Adelle and her, the two are completely unable to communicate.  We learn that at the root of Edna’s unease is a feeling so alien to Adelle, who feels alive when participating in the societal model of normality, that they could not “understand each other” or speak “the same language” (69).  Edna confesses her true nature, saying that even for her own children she won’t put herself second.  In fact, it is this very declaration of hers that comes into her mind when she decides to end her life.  Her transgression from the expectations of others is not merely a rebellion for the sake of rebellion, it stems from the very heart of her inner nature.  In her abandonment of her own children, she reveals a disposition opposed to the most basic expectation about female instinct.  Regarding her connections with others, she sees relationships as shackles and obstacles to freedom.  Her conflict is deeper than a rejection of standards – it is a personal suffocation.  All of the evidence to this effect is summed up when the narrator shares Edna’s mind with us after a visit with Riesz.  Edna “resolved never again to belong to another than herself” (103).
        Although Chopin illustrates that her main character is naturally predisposed to reach a social conflict, the author also makes it clear that at the time of the story, the awakening described by the title of the novel is an event in and of itself.  Edna reveals the metaphor in the novel’s title, telling Robert, “It was you who awoke me last summer out of a life-long, stupid dream” (132).  That summer she begins to look upon her own body “as if it were something she saw for the first time” (58).  The other characters serve as representations which pronounce differences in Edna’s mentality and at the same time offer potential roles in society that she might emulate, as she approaches the critical epiphany that must inevitably resolve her conflict.  We become convinced that her being awake reveals to her a denial of self which can not be ignored, but it cannot be tolerated, either.
        Edna recalls the seeds of her awakening in her youth.  She then reveals that her desire to flee convention has matured along with her, by sustaining Chopin’s symbolism; a unity between the ocean Edna tests in adulthood and “the stretch of green” of the “big field” she runs through in childhood:  “…I feel this summer as if I were walking through the green meadow again; idly, aimlessly, unthinking and unguided” (38).