What Does Water Symbolize In The Awakening

The freeing sense of a bird’s flight and the vast expanse of the ocean’s opportunity are both liberating concepts for someone who feels trapped. Edna Pontellier in Kate Chopin’s The Awakening over time starts to feel trapped in her marriage and the social standards that come along with being a mother during the late 1800s. She starts to gain more freedom and independence as she searches for love with other men, particularly Robert Lebrun. Along with this journey for love and freedom, symbols of flight and water are presented to represent her evolution as a woman. In Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, water, and flight symbolize Edna’s evolving freedom and escape.

Kate Chopin uses water to symbolize the freedom that Edna is yearning for, and the consequences

Edna begins as a wife unsatisfied with her married life and responsibilities as a mother. This entrapment is symbolized as a green and yellow parrot in a cage that has the right to make all the fuss it wants, although still stuck in a cage, void of the interactions that it longs for. The confines of Edna’s marriage are preventing her from flying out into the world so she can experience it for herself. Edna must escape from her caged existence and find her wings in order to soar. Building strength as an independent woman, Edna finds great value in her relationship with Mademoiselle Reisz who is an artist and inspirational female figure to Edna. When questioning Edna about her own wings, Mademoiselle Reisz remarks that “‘the bird that [soars] above the level plain of tradition and prejudice must have strong wings… Whither would you soar?’” (Chopin 112). This question prompts Edna to evaluate her strength as her own person. She realizes that she must have courage and bravery, symbolized as wings, to soar away from societal constraints. Although Edna begins to soar by starting her own life in the pigeon house, she finds herself at the beach once more before her suicide finding failure in her original journey. Edna stands, watching as she sees “a bird with a broken wing [beating] the air above, reeling, fluttering, circling disabled down, down to the water” (Chopin 156). Edna realizes that she cannot flee from the immense amount of burdens placed on women in her society by living in ignorance of her responsibilities. Therefore, much like the bird's demise, she subjects herself to death in the sea, an escape from all of her sentiments. Edna is able to escape her caged life as a married woman and learns to fly. Although, her wings are not strong enough to allow her to soar and reach satisfaction with her