Star-crossed lovers are commonly found in literature. For example, Hester and Dimmesdale, Romeo and Juliet, and Gatsby and Daisy all represent archetypal star-crossed lovers. They love one another deeply, but fate forbids them from being together. In The Awakening, the readers recognize Edna and Robert as a pair of star-crossed lovers.
Edna and Robert cannot openly express their affections towards one another. While Edna admits to her “incomprehensible longing” for Robert, Robert never states his love for Edna (Chopin 105). However, the readers infer that Robert reciprocates Edna’s feelings through his actions, his apparent attachment to Edna at Grand Isle. Edna, on the other hand, is a married woman, and Robert is just a young man. As a result, the two must suppress their love for one another as a married woman cannot be in love with someone other than her husband. When Edna visits Madame Lebrun and reviews Robert’s two letters, her “despondent frame of mind” overtakes her again as Robert does not mention her in his letters to his family (Chopin 112). Yet, when Robert writes a letter to Mademoiselle Reisz, the letter “might as well have been sent to [Edna]” (Chopin 114). He only asks Mademoiselle Reisz about “Mrs. Pontellier… Mrs. Pontellier… Mrs. Pontellier” (Chopin 115). Robert is unable to ask about Edna in his letters to his family without seeming suspicious. However, he can ask Mademoiselle Reisz, a despised recluse, about Edna because Mademoiselle Reisz would not broadcast his feelings to the public.
The authors of The Awakening, The Scarlet Letter, Romeo and Juliet, and The Great Gatsby not only incorporate the same archetypal star-crossed lovers in their plot, but they also separate their lovers similarly: their ill-fated lovers cannot remain together due to society.
While Edna clearly has feelings for Robert, I think her newfound independence has made her somewhat of a flirt. Although she says Alcée Arobin is "absolutely nothing to her", he supposedly "[acts] like a narcotic upon her" (Chopin 132). She feels guilty after meeting with him, yet she wouldn't feel guilty unless she reciprocated his flirtations.
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