With the advent of her initial swim she feels a great sense of power and exaltation over her environment: "A feeling of exultation over took her, as if some power of significant import had been given her control the working of her body and soul she wanted to swim far out, where no woman had swum before" (489). This yearning to swim out father than anyone else is symbolic of her quest to defy her social roles within society namely, being a wife, mother and a possession of her husband. In turn, she uses this experience to control her body and soul which will further move her away from the social world. .
The sea for Edna contains the answer to her fate because the sea is endless and: "has no beginning and no end." Learning to swim awakens Edna to her sensuality and passion, repressed at puberty for instance, the movement of the sea recalls memories of her sexual desire for a cavalry officer. The sea is a source of erotic desire that beckons and seduces her throughout the entire novel and speaks to her soul, enfolding her body in its embrace: "seductive; never ceasing, whispering, clamouring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander for a spell in abyss of solitude." (558) In Edna's final swim she does not glace back towards her attachments on the shore world rather she travels out toward the vast expanse of water ignoring what she may have left behind and accepting her fate. Her final swim represents the transcendence of the visionary quest. Readers watch her suicide with ironic detachment because her final swim leaves us with a resonant vast new potential that Edna has tragically discovered that there is no room for her or her ideals in the world. She understands that she can not dictate her life in adherence to societal norms yet, she also understands that she can not physically live in a world that will not allow her to be the person she aspires to be. Which is similar to the conclusion of Huck Finn where Huck abandons the shore world because of his visionary sense.
