Léonce Pontellier devotes himself to the high-power businessman and the wage earner, to the exclusion of almost everything else, including his wife. Robert Lebrun turns away from love because he adheres to the decorum of a gentleman, and Alcée Arobin plays the superficial seducer, but has trouble understanding where the act ends. Edna Ponteiller, unlike the others, fully recognizes that she has been chosen to play a role and decides that she no longer wants it. She would be willing to play her role and risk her reputation, but she finds that she cannot live the life she wants without making her children's lives a scandal as well. In The Awakening, Chopin successfully illustrates how ideology shapes everyone, with or without them