It’s always interesting to me to see how readers react to the character of Edna. In my experience, many readers today have a hard time sympathizing in any way with Edna’s situation. To some extent, the limitations placed on wives and mothers during the late 19th and early 20th centuries are quite different from our cultural context, which perhaps explains some of this. Edna, to be sure, makes some very bad decisions and is presented in an objective, uncompromising light, but what are some of the forces that lead her astray?
