Adam and Eve in Paradise Lost make us feel that the first man and the first woman are similar, and yet they are different for they are unequal. The first woman is for the first man, for “God in him.” Her identity is thus determined by her relationship with and subordination to him. The element of inequality also characterizes marital relationships and gender dynamics in the Creole world of The Awakening. A sense of inequality and subordination precipitate the crisis in the life of Edna Pontellier. Edna refuses to be “for him” (her husband); she quests for a feminine identity that defies the prevalent social norms and expectations. Edna finally opts for the vast expanse of the sea rejecting the constraints imposed by society. Her swimming out into the sea is not a desperate act of self-destruction of a vanquished rebel. It is an exploration of newer spaces and of a new alternative for women—the alternative of noncompliance, non-subjugation, and bold defiance.

This introduction of Adam and Eve in Paradise Lost makes us conscious that the first man and the first woman, who greet our eyes in Book IV of Milton’s epic, are similar, because “in their looks divine/the image of the glorious maker shone” (iv, pp. 291-292), and yet they are different for they are unequal. The first woman is for the first man, for “God in him.” Her identity is thus determined by her relationship of subordination to him. This element of inequality, prevalent in the mythical world of the first man and the first woman, also characterizes marital relationships and gender dynamics in the Creole world of The Awakening. In fact, inequality and subordination precipitate the crisis of Edna Pontellier. Edna refuses to be “for him” (her husband); she demands to become, what Elizabeth Cady Stanton describes, “an individual, in a world of her own, the arbiter of her own destiny” (p. 325). She quests for a feminine identity that conflicts with the prevalent social norms and expectations. Edna finally embraces the vast expanse of the sea discarding a society that seeks to condition her existence in terms of a man, where she can be a wife and a mother, or a mistress, but never just Edna, an individual in her own right. The voice of God summons Eve away from her own image and reconciles her with Adam:

What there thou seest fair creature is thyself
[. . .] but follow me
And I will bring thee
[. . .]hee
Whose image thou art
– Paradise Lost (iv, pp. 467-473)

The voice of society would have done the same to Edna. She would have been compelled to abandon the desire for the recognition of her individual identity and forced to reconcile, like Eve, to a subordinate role as the image of a man. Edna refuses to conform to an oppressive social order; instead she swims out into the sea in bold defiance of its patriarchal conventions. Her swimming out into the sea is not a desperate act of self-destruction of a vanquished rebel. It is an exploration of newer spaces and proposing of a new alternative for women—the alternative of noncompliance, non-subjugation, and bold defiance.

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