Heroic Behavior

"Sometimes I am tempted to think that Mrs. Pontellier is capricious" a housewife that swims against the current.

I always think that when one criticizes someone it is because you feel either jealous  or superior in some way. In the case of Madame Lebrun, she perhaps thinks of Mrs. Pontellier as a changing being because her way of acting differs from the conventional personalities she is accustomed to . A bizarre change in the typical behavior of a house wife.

Who would dare to swim in the "vast expanse of water, meeting and melting in the moonlit sky"(62)?  Edna Pontellier did it. And because of it she was simply considered different. As if it were a crime to simply walk away to rejoice triumph alone. When one stands out, simply breaks what society expects one is criticized.

Edna's behavior was seen as heroic, but the way she coped with it was seen was different, weird, moody. Society wants to be a part of everything a controlling freak that when one little thing escapes the judgmental moster inside it comes out to display its prejudice.