d to unrequited and disappointed affection" (Forbes 793). And, since jealousy will "distract and unsettle the mind" more than anything, "insanity and suicide often owe their origin to this feeling" (Forbes 793). This opinion was published four years before Chopin's book, and represents the way that many people thought of suicide. At the end of The Awakening the readers do not have any doubt that this is exactly what her friends and her family will think about Edna. Robert will believe she killed herself over him and her husband will believe that something had made her insane a long time before this.
In fact, even before she kills herself, Edna's husband has started to think of her behavior as insanity. This is because Edna finds it impossible to communicate what she is feeling to him. They talk to each other but he does not understand and she stops believing that she can make him, or anybody, understand what she feels. She had moved into the little house and stopped dealing with people, she even stopped visiting her family. She had outbursts of anger and neglected everything. When her husband thought about her he was shocked because she no longer gave him "a certain tacit submissiveness" and he was an
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