Water And Birds In The Awakening

In the 1800s, women faced extreme oppression and were forced to become the perfect image of a caring mother and loving wife. However, in Kate Chopin’s, The Awakening, Edna Pontellier defies these expectations and social norms and takes her own path. Edna is married to her husband, Leonce Pontellier until she falls in love with Robert one summer while on vacation. In Edna’s attempt to find her own path and defy the role placed upon her by society she has an affair with Robert until he leaves her and she ends her life out of despair and sadness. Two things that come up repeatedly throughout Edna’s journey are water and birds. The symbolic imagery of water and birds represent oppression and escape for women in the 1800s. Water symbolizes escaping

Edna feels trapped by her life as a mother and wife to Leonce, similarly to the two birds that were entrapped in a cage. The mockingbird and the parrot wanting to escape captivity represent Edna’s yearning to escape society and the expectations she faces. However, she very rarely expresses these feelings. Edna is living a “dual life [where] the outside conforms and inward life questions” (Chopin 18). Edna battles with her internal conflict of what her heart (or inward life) are telling her she wants, versus what society (or outside conforms) is telling her. The restricting feelings she experiences are placed on her by society and what people believed to be right and normal during the 1800s. One way the birds in the novel are described as is by “soar[ing] above the level plain of tradition and prejudice and [having] strong wings” (Chopin 88). This is a direct relation to Edna’s strongwill and determination throughout the novel. Edna defies norms when she falls in love with Robert and she finds herself in the midst of loving him. She feels stronger and more alive than ever. However that all goes away when Robert leave her. In the end, Edna realizes that there is no place for her in the world, and similar to the parrot and mockingbird, there was no way to escape. She felt like an injured bird, “beating the air above, reeling, fluttering, circling, disabled, down, down to the water” (Chopin 120). She sees this bird just before she dies, a bird that once represented defiance and strongwill is now broken and depressed, just like