In The Awakening, the family acts like the society with rules put in place for each gender. This, in turn, becomes problematic for Edna as her husband always overrules her. He believes, “if it is not a mother’s place to look after children, whose on earth was it?” (P.13) Léonce is very dismissive of Edna’s mothering skills. Edna’s role in society is in the private sphere and is very constraining; by Léonce undermining her he is not caring about her emotions. He does not give her the respect of a wife and does not want to be a part of her world. Edna experiences “an indescribable oppression, which seemed to generate in some unfamiliar part of her consciousness, filled her whole being with a vague anguish. It was like a shadow, like a mist passing
