In the novel The Awakening Kate Chopin characterises Edna Pontellier as a woman travelling on a journey searching for her inner self. While travelling inwards Edna experiences several smaller awakenings, mostly of emotional but also of sensual nature. Each and every single awakening contributes to the protagonist’s search for her own identity and liberation. In this essay I concentrate on the protagonist’s various awakenings in terms of emancipation and emotions. Furthermore I demonstrate how she experiences several different changes in life, simultaneously as she goes through both progression and regression, and how that affect her in her striving to find herself. While going on the inward voyage she encounters several obstacles and my intention is to show how she rebels against barriers, such as social convention and traditional gender roles as well as her husband. Moreover, when attempting to attain her wishes she seeks counsel from various characters in the novel and they all function as contributing causes and lead her through obstacles on her inward voyage. Finally, in the end of the novel she makes a decision, realising that her only means to of accomplishing her desire for individual autonomy is to yield to the eternal sea, which she apprehends as the only place available where she can find individuality, freedom and solitude. Although on her inward voyage she is never able to develop any deep understanding of her situation, she still apprehends her defying actions as not in vain. Thus, she accepts her limitations by realising that the instrument to attain her emancipation is through sacrificing her own life.