Quote 3
“How
many years have I slept?” she inquired. “The whole island seems
changed. A new race of beings must have sprung up, leaving only
you and me as past relics. How many ages ago did Madame Antoine
and Tonie die? And when did our people from Grand Isle disappear
from the earth?”
These lines, which Edna speaks in Chapter
XIII, reflect her desire to be isolated with Robert and, thus, free
from the restrictions of the society that surrounds them. At the
same time, her fantasy that she and Robert have already been
left alone as “past relics” evidences the way that her new self-awareness
has separated her—dangerously—from reality. Mentally, Edna is already
living in her own isolated, island-like, mythical world. She has
not yet fully acknowledged her feelings for Robert, nor does she
understand the effect that her love for him will have on her life
in the real world. Indeed, the conditions that Edna describes in
this daydream are the only ones in which a relationship between
Edna and Robert would be possible. As long as they live within society,
their love is unable to overcome social convention and tradition.
