Edna does not seem to fulfill the expected role of mother or housewife. Her main focus is certainly not her children, which seem to stand in the background of her priorities. Unlike the other mothers, Edna doesn't run behind them, looking out for whatever danger, real or imaginary, might haunt them. She even admits that her love for them is uneven. Sometimes she adored them and "she would sometimes forget them"(43). It appears to be that she lacks the responsibility that the role of a mother requires.
Edna's mind is focused on a subject that is far away from her present duties of respectable housewife. Her thoughts wander towards her childhood, when she was free of any type of compromise or responsibility. There is a memory in her mind in which she walks through a green meadow, "idly, aimlessly, unthinking and unguided" (41). Perhaps this memory contains her bottled yearning for freedom, which she gave up when she got married.
Love is a second aspect Edna is missing. When she was a young girl, her heart throbbed for a romance and a love story. This feeling was a very important part during her maiden years, and it would seem that her dream might have been to live a romantic adventure and marry for love. However, as Fate would decide it, she ended up marrying Leonce Pontellier by what she declares was "purely an accident" (43). Out of sympathy and partly rebellion, Edna decided to take Mr. Pontellier as her husband. This decision appears to be one of the biggest mistakes of her life, as it plunged her into a relationship where she is confused and uncomfortable. What reason moved her to resign to love and turn down her childhood dreams? Perhaps this question is the cause of her nightly weeping, and the reason behind her slow but certain awakening. There is "a certain light beginning to dawn dimly within her" (34), and this illumination could be a turning point in Edna's life.
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