'The Awakening' & 'Anna Karenina'

I've said this before, but Chopin gets Edna to the same place Tolstoy gets Anna in a 10th of the time.

Edna and Anna are merely two tiles in the great mosaic of morose women in literature. From Emma Bovary to the Little Women and all the heroines of Austin and the Bronte sisters, the legacy is deep and impactful.

As much as we could celebrate these great characters -- angry, disenfranchises, unsatisfied and sad -- the larger picture here is that women perhaps were not enslaved but the intentions were just the same.

Life prospects were slim, they were kept tethered to the idea that your worth was tied to whoever was married to you. That contentment was the ceiling, and shame and uncertainty were the bottom of the ocean.

Edna chose the bottom of the ocean. Anna, a train.