Connections

As I finished reading "The Awakening" I was once again drawn into authors we had read before.  I wondered if Fern had written her pieces to warn women like Edna the dangers of the abyss that love could be and if Plath felt like Edna when she stuck her own head in an oven.  While admittedly dark and morose, the path of wife and mother can sometimes be just that.  When time is not your own and the life you imagined turns out to  be the life you cannot, despair can sometimes triumph.  While it is easy to judge Mrs. Pontellier and state it is self-centered to dream of an affair and leave your family behind to escape, can we really state what we do not understand?  The dangers of impulse are described in Edna following convention for no other reason that she is supposed to and the danger of lust is portrayed in the outcome, right?  I would caution we read this too plainly.  While suicide is an out, it is far from an easy out and one must ask if Mr. Pontellier had been a better husband and Robert not a dirt bag would the outcome have been different?  If Plath had a better life would she have had a longer one?  Perhaps Fern was right...woman hood from the sidelines with careful consideration of the outcome may just be a lifesaver for young and old wives!