Note that Edna's death is foreshadowed by the Zampa duet played continuously throughout the summer by the Farival twins. The twins' performances represent the shackles of domesticity: All the Grand Isle vacationers must pretend to enjoy these endlessly repeated recitals due to the social convention that requires children and their actions to be evaluated entirely with sentiment rather than with honesty. At the gathering where the twins perform the Zampa duet yet again, the parrot (who represents Edna) squawks loudly its phrase "Go away, for God's sake!" as if voicing everyone's silent protest, a scene that represents Edna's later candor about doing what she truly feels like doing rather than what is expected of her. Note, too, that in this same scene, Mademoiselle Reisz is introduced, shown objecting to a crying baby. This scene implies that the necessary honesty of art is at odds with the sentimentality Edna's culture attaches to motherhood.
Ultimately, Mademoiselle Reisz becomes her mentor in the world of art, providing the definition of an artist and warning Edna about beginning but not finishing a rebellion. Edna is not enough of an artist to make it her reason for living when all else seems lost — unlike Mademoiselle Reisz, who sacrificed everything for her music and has received little in return. She has even molded her body to meet the demands of her art, even though that means when she plays "her body settled into ungraceful curves . . . that gave it an appearance of deformity." In contrast, Madame Ratignolle bends music to her purpose of "brightening the home and making it attractive."
Just as Edna's character is neither all good nor all bad, as an artist, she is neither a brilliant painter nor a talentless hack. One key difference between Edna and a serious visual artist is that Edna does not use her art to express her discontent. On her bad days, "when life appeared to her like a grotesque pandemonium," she is not inspired by the darkness of human experience and emotion, as the great painters are. She can paint only when she is happily alive and reveling in the sensuality of existence.
