Edna's predicament in The AwakeningDr. Mandelet, speaking more as a wise, older man than as a medical authority, seems to understand Edna's predicament. When Mr. Pontellier asks his opinion regarding his wife's strange behavior, the doctor immediately asks: "Is there a man in this matter?" (950). While Edna thinks about expressing her rights to independence, Dr. Mandelet knows that her heart is still tied to the need for a man in her life and an uncontrolled submission to sexual passion. After declaring herself free from the narrow world of gender roles prescribed by her husband, Edna begins to act spontaneously, without considering, as Léonce would like, "what people would say" (977). During a visit to Mademoiselle Reisz, she boldly displays her new attitude, refusing the more modest hot chocolate in favor of a "man's drink": "I'll have some cognac," Edna says, shivering as she takes off her gloves and overshoes. She drank the alcohol from the glass as a man would have done. Then, throwing herself on the uncomfortable sofa, she said: “Miss, I am going to move away from my house on Esplanade Street. (962)However, she will take "just two steps" (962) away, she admits, betraying the fact that her feminist step forward will be hindered by at least two steps back. Her new confidence will not be enough to protect her from the difficulties of her changing life. Although she expresses herself to Robert in what she considers an "unfeminine" style (990), she is still a victim of societal conditioning, wanting to cede her identity to another person. Cristina Giorcelli writes that “states of transition are inevitably states of inner, inner consciousness.” external ambiguity. In her quest for her true self, Edna loses, or enhances with the addition of opposing connotations, her original gender connotations and social attributes” (121). Such a reading, however, risks simplifying the story in its attempt to clarify exactly what is ambiguous. Although Giorcelli acknowledges that the message of the story is vague, she seems to contradict herself when she asserts that, thanks to her androgyny, Edna manages to achieve the totality of a composite unity, both integral and versatile, at the same time. both necessary and free. Overcoming gender and role differentiation ontologically involves subjugating that which justifies but restricts, and ethically it involves mastering the dark one-sidedness of responsibility. The bourgeois crisis that Edna endures – the gap between duty to others and right to herself[--] .