Edna's Many Men...Uh Oh.

One of the Socratic Seminar questions that we never really discussed was how each man played different roles in Edna's life. I feel that each character filled a void in her life that she felt was missing. Leonce was her void for society. He was the only thing that helped her fit into society because he had status and money. That was looked upon as a good thing and was important to the society she was living in. As a young girl, this is something she may have felt that is what she wanted. Robert was the emotional love she always wished for. Unlike Leonce, Edna felt that Robert expressed more love, admiration and affection towards her. Arobin then became her void for the physical love. She never had any real feelings for him that she would be attached to. The three men in her lives filled the void of what she felt she was missing at that time. This is similar to many other books we have read so far in class. Catherine in Wuthering Heights was in love with Heathcliff for the emotional love like Edna and Robert. However, due to society's standards, she married Edgar. This marriage however didn't stop her from loving Heathcliff. Another book that shows how a character tries to fill a void is Things Fall Apart. Although Onkonkwo didn't feel like he needed romantic love, he felt he needed to fill the void of not having much of a father figure in his life. So this emotional love was taken care of after he felt that the void would be filled if he acted as the best father possible to his own children. Also to act the opposite of how his father was. In our society today we see many people filling voids in their lives on a daily basis. We see this a lot with people dealing with addictions. People with problems in their lives may result to drinking alcohol. To these people, this may be a void for them because they feel it satisfies and takes care of their problems. Humans also tend to try and fill a void in their life by making large changes. Our society has a large divorce rate which could be contributed by people feeling that divorce is the only way to fill the void of them not feeling the love in the relationship. This could also be applied to cheating on their significant other. The people who tend to cheat are people who feel that they are getting something out of their relationship and they seek it in someone else. I feel that it is human nature for people to seek for something to fill the gap in what we feel is missing. It is uncharacteristic of us to not want what is best for ourselves or find things that give us discomfort rather than pleasure. Edna was acting as any other human would do. She acted upon her discomfort and tried to find ways to fix the problems in her life.