In The Awakening and To Build a Fire the main characters, Edna and the Yukon Man, both meet their demise by courtesy of nature.

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In The Awakening and “To Build a Fire” the main characters, Edna and the Yukon Man, both meet their demise by courtesy of nature. In the case of Edna, she walks into the Gulf of Mexico where she drowns while the Yukon Man stoically accepts his fate in the cold unbearable wilderness and falls asleep never to wake up again. Both characters appear to share little in common. Edna is part of the upper class echelon of society struggling with how she views herself and is re-evaluating her life as a mother and wife. The Yukon Man is a working class explorer whose life we don’t really know that much about. He is singular in his focus to get to a campsite where his fellow travelers are. In death both Edna and Yukon Man lose more than they gain.

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        The context in which Edna kills herself is essential in understanding the aftermath of her death. When Edna first appears in “The Awakening” she’s an unhappily married wife and mother vacationing in the Gulf coast with her family. It is on this vacation where Edna begins to awaken and become disillusioned and unsatisfied by the life she is leading. She is trapped in a marriage with an absent husband. In the first chapter Mr. Pontellier leaves the house to gamble at Klein’s and when asked when by Edna when he would return “He did not know; perhaps he would return early ...

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