Depression Kills(The Awakening by Kate Chopin)

About 10 to 14 million people in the United States suffer depression. These people often cry, and may lose interest in work and social life. Some depressed patients often try to harm or kill themselves. Throughout The Awakening, a novel written by Kate Chopin, the main character, Edna Pontellier showed signs of a growing depression. She is unhappy with her marriage and doesn’t take on her role as a mother. Joyce Dyer believes that ”Edna senses that a woman’s identity as a human being is more important than her role as a mother.”(Dyer, 100) Another critic, Barbara Ewell, states that, “Edna rejects the false definitions that have been imposed upon her: Leonce’s wife and possession,” and “a self-less ‘mother-woman’.”(Ewell, 163) Edna’s depression, as time goes on, grows ever so slowly throughout the novel. There are certain events that hasten this depression, events that eventually lead her to suicide.
The first incident in which her depression begins is wh...