From our Socratic Seminar questions- support or refute the following: "As the novel progresses, Edna becomes more and more selfish, immature, and irresponsible, and therefore less admirable and even less likeable." When I read this I completely disagreed. I found that I did like and even admire Edna in a way as The Awakening progressed. Maybe because I (for some reason- not everyone liked it!?) really like The Awakening, it is a bit difficult for me to see Edna in a negative light. I mean, I understand how someone could say that Edna is a bad person, or call her irresponsible, immature, and selfish- it is just not easy for me to agree with any of these things. But when I read that statement again, I began to see a bit of truth in it. One word caught my eye and sparked something in my mind- selfish. When I thought about it, I could definitely see Edna as being selfish. But I am still unwilling to say that Edna's selfishness is the same as selfishness the way it is usually percieved. Instead I started to see how Edna's selfishness is the same kind that is seen in Howard Roark in The Fountainhead- from our notes, "each man's primary moral obligation is to achieve his own welfare, well-being, or self-interest... He should be 'selfish' in the sense of being beneficiary of his own moral actions." That is the kind of selfishness I see in Edna. Although it is interseting- I am under the impression that most everyone in our class respected Howard Roark for refusing to let other people dominate his thinking and his life, and for not conforming to the standards of society, and yet, even though Edna does the exact same thing, most people seemed to have some serious issues with her for it. Most likely that reaction is due to the fact that in Edna's situation there were children involved. In our society, while it is an awful act for a man to leave his wife and their children, it is nigh unthinkable for a woman to do the same. Like we have discussed in class, people today are more prone to accept a mother leaving her children if, say, she had a drug or alcohol addiction and her leaving was best for them than they are to accept Edna's leaving. But I must say, personally I don't begrudge her for leaving her children behind. Despite what others have said, I just don't see any another way for Edna.