My article was about Edna and her likeness to the Goddess, Aphrodite. The author's main point was to say that Edna was in fact a recreation of the goddess of love. However, the author, Sandra M. Gilbert, is very unclear throughout the essay. She hops from one topic to another. Her phrasing is slightly off obscure, but it adds to the charm of the article. She did use a few to many references to other books, designating half the essay to books that were similiar to The Awakening in some way and she did not make the importance of the connections clear. Overall I thought she could have gotten to the point a little more directly and with far less references. To make her point Gilbert spoke frequently of the sea. Aphrodite was born from the sea and symbolically so was Edna when she took her first swim alone. The new "goddess" like Edna was born in the water that night. Another point that Gilbert makes is that Aphrodite is created as an adult with no childhood. Now, of course, Edna had a childhood, but in a sense she did not, because she was forced to grow up at such a young age. Gilbert uses a lot of quotations throughout her essay to support her thesis. Gilbert uses an interesting quote to tie in her theme of Edna being a goddess. She talks about the story that Robert relayed to Edna the night of her mid-night swim. The story of the spirit who rises every 28 of August in the hopes of finding someone worthy to talk to. In the book Chopin says that Edna is the only one ever found worthy of this spirit with her "divine presence". This again characterizes Edna in a higher manner than all the other characters in The Awakening.
I think that this article was a little unorganized and frenzied, but interesting all the same. I think that Gilbert is right in the sense that Edna was trying to overcome what seemed impossible. However, as Gilbert states, I don't believe that Edna is as Aphrodite was. Edna is someone who seems restless and looking for something to fill that void for freedom. Edna was a strong person throughout the novel, but she was also frenzied and confused most of the time. I think that Edna was simply her own person not the recreation of a goddess. An idea that Gilbert discussed I fully embrace, however. As Gilbert went off on thoughts that had little to do with her thesis, she spoke of an idea that Edna did not die or runaway, she was running to something and that we, as the readers do not know that she died. She was going back to the days of her carefree youth, a place where she could truely be a strong person and be content with herself. A place where she could embrace the kind of woman that she is: strong, independent and willing to love freely.
