January- A Heroic End

In my opinion, suicide in today's society is becoming way too glorified. People think that suicide is so much more tragic than another death or that it is "heroic" but I completely disagree. As seen in The Awakening, the main character Edna kills herself in order to escape from her unhappy life. Edna's actions are often viewed as revolutionary or as the equivalent of her taking flight and showing society that they cannot control her. To me, that is in no way Edna fighting society. To me that is Edna giving in. By killing herself Edna let her world take her down. Not to say that she would have been better off with the life that she was living, but really it was just a lose lose situation. I personally don't admire her really at all for what she did. I do understand that during that time in that kind of a society it would have been very very hard for her to break away and really be successful or independent on her own. However, I feel like if it was meant to be an inspiring story that should've been what happened. Although the actual ending was obviously more realistic. The Awakening I think justifies suicide in a way that I don't ever think is ok. I find this to be more and more common in media today as well which definitely bothers me. I strongly disagree with the common modern views of suicide and the similar one presented by The Awakening.