END OF BOOK

The end of the book brings with it Robert!!! However, the happy profession of love soon turns ugly. As we know, the book ends in Edna's death. It can be disputed whether she killed herself or whether she let herself die... I would say the latter, because it goes with the symbolism that is through out the book. The whole idea of swimming out further than one can recover is a common theme, because in the end, Edna swam out further than she could recover, both literally and figuratively. In her life, she was trying to free herself, but she overdid it, went a little bit crazy, and ended up forgetting the responsibilities- essentially her children- that bound her to the life she had. Therefore she lost control of it, because she realized why she could never be with Robert, and though she may not understand completely why Robert left, she understood that it couldn't happen while she still had other responsibilities. She had swum out too far, and there was no way to recover. Thus, she drowned.