A major motif in Kate Chopin’s novel The Awakening is the image of a bird, appearing frequently throughout the story. Compared to the image of the bird towards the beginning of the novel, the image at the end of the story signifies a significant characteristic change in the bird: it struggles to fly with a “broken” wing and dies. This transition from an image of a bird that initially succeeds in flying to a bird that struggles to explore the skies serves to demonstrate the parallel change that Edna experiences from a unique curious tendency to find and nourish her independence to ultimately an inability to sustain her volition in a society that restricts her freedom and exacerbates her solitude. The image of the bird toward the beginning of
