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Water And Birds In The Awakening

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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 …show more content…

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

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Kate Chopin develops Edna’s character so rigorously, she creates a whole new character by the end of the novel. Edna’s feat of overcoming her fears reveals the powerful message of being brave and finding

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Edna is only able to break free of tradition to be happy if she does not break her spirit down in the process. Chopin uses the symbolism of a bird with broken wings to represent the toll taken on those who choose to bear

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It is common for people in everyday society to conform to society’s expectations while also questioning their true desires. In the novel, The Awakening, by Kate Chopin, the main protagonist Edna Pontellier is said to possess, "That outward existence which conforms, the inward life that questions." In other words, Edna outwardly conforms while questioning inwardly. Kate Chopin, uses this tension between outward conformity and inward questioning to build the meaning of the novel by examining Edna’s role as a wife, mother, and as nontraditional woman in the traditional Victorian period. Edna outwardly conforms to society’s expectations by marriage.

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From the beginning, the Creole society views Edna Pontellier as a stranger to their culture and eventually Creole customs. At the Lebrun’s main house, the narrator introduces and explains the importance of birds. Specifically, a caged parrot is known to “...speak a little Spanish, and also a language which nobody understood…” (1). Chopin uses this comparison to Edna and the bird in order to show her

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The parrot continuously repeats French and English phrases, causing a great deal of noise. The parrot symbolizes Edna’s unexpressed feelings. She feels as if she is being held prisoner like her parrot in the cage. Kate Chopin’s purpose for including this is her novel is to give symbolic background details on Edna before the story truly begins. 2.

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In Kate Chopin’ s novel, The Awakening, there are three identities inside of the female leading role, Edna Pontellier, being a wife, mother and own self. Edna was born in 19th century at the Vitoria period, a patriarchy society, women have low freedom to achieve personal goal. She married with Léonce Pontellier, a wealthy man with Creole descent. After having a child, her life is still unchangeable and as bored as before. Until she encountered Robert Leburn, Mademoiselle Reisz, and Alcée Arobin, her value of self-cognition has changed.

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Her frequent vacations to the island, like her frequent dips into the ocean, begin to spark a personal change within the woman. A Creole man, Robert, shows Edna a new dimension of feelings she never knew she lived without, and she begins to look through life through a new lens. Having been awakened for the first time, she sees injustice and mistreatment where she saw none before. Chopin uses Edna’s new observations and reactions to the culture around her to illustrate the myriad ways women were marginalized. In an ironic twist, the white woman from Kentucky proves to be more liberated than her more traditional husband, who grew up

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It is a sad spectacle to see the weaklings bruised, exhausted, fluttering back to earth” (Chopin 112). The bird Mademoiselle Reisz is referencing is symbolic of Edna's developing strength and heightening journey to independence but foreshadows Edna's inevitable downfall back into society's grasp. Edna endeavors to break societal confines convinced she can escape her husband's control and find freedom with Robert; Slowly, she begins to realize the impossibility of her desires.

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It seems then, that Edna must have the mockingbird role-model -- someone who understands her mysterious language as the mockingbird understands the parrot’s. If the parrot stands for Edna, the mockingbird must represents Mademoiselle Reisz, the unorthodox and self-reliant pianist who inspires Edna’s independence in the novel. Like the parrot, Edna is valued by society for her physical appearance, and like the mockingbird, Mademoiselle Reisz is valued by society for her musical talent. Although the parrot and the mockingbird are different, the two birds can communicate since they share (like Edna and Mademoiselle Reisz metaphorically) the common experience of being caged. The metaphor of the pet bird applies not only to Edna and Mademoiselle Reisz but also to most women in the nineteenth century.

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In the 1800’s, the societal niche of married women was clearly defined: they were meant to devote every aspect of their lives to their husbands and children. Edna Pontellier, the protagonist in Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, struggles to adhere to these standards, and eventually rebels against them. The harsh standards placed on Edna and other women in the novel are like the cages around the metaphorical birds Chopin uses to represent them. Edna's unhappiness in her societal role is realized in the ocean, which symbolizes this awakening and her attempt to escape the gender roles of the nineteenth century.

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When Edna realizes that Robert loves her, but is too frightened to be with her, she cannot take the pain and sorrow she feels. Edna awakes and realizes that her life is empty. She finds that she’s the one who has been defeated by society and life itself. As Edna goes back to the place where she had begun her awakening, she walks to the beach and sees a bird who is hurt. It states, “A bird with a broken wing was beating the air above, reeling, fluttering, circling disabled down, down to the water” (156).

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Birds and their action of taking flight are used to symbolize characters and their struggles. Edna lived a very isolated life where she couldn’t reach her desires very similar to a parrot “hung in a cage”(Chopin 1). The author was able to compare her life which was limited by society

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At the beginning of the novel, Edna had appeared to be recognizing the fact that her life revolves around her husband and her children, and that it is her main duty to care for them. It is mainly Mr. Pontellier, her husband, who tries to establish an image of her being a both a perfect partner and wife. He views her as an object that must be suitable for the eyes of society. According to him, his wife is a “valuable piece of personal property which has suffered some damage” (Chopin 2). He is controlling over her appearance and actions.

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Within the novel, The Awakening by Kate Chopin, Madame Ratignolle’s character possesses traits that emphasize, by contrast the characteristics and behavior of Edna Pontellier. Despite being close friends within the novel, Adele and Edna have contrasting views and behaviors that illuminate the theme of female freedom and the tradition of female submission and male domination. Madame Ratignolle and Edna Pontellier are close friends, but their views toward raising children differ fundamentally. Madame Ratignolle would sacrifice her identity to devote herself entirely to her children, household, and husband, whereas Edna would not. Besides their views towards raising children, how they raise their children also differs.

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Chopin ties the bird falling back to all previous bird related symbolism, especially when Mademoiselle Reisz checks out Edna’s wings. This final mention of birds is extremely significant. Throughout Edna’s entire story birds have always been present. Birds have been telling the reader what she is struggling though. When a bird can’t fly Edna’s story, essentially her struggle, is over.

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