Throughout the novel, Chopin uses imagery to show that society is oppressive. Two of the most important images that Chopin uses repeatedly throughout the course of the novel is the image of the sea and the image of birds. The imagery of the sea is repeated in The Awakening and comes to be a major symbol of Edna awakening. “The sea is a symbol of Edna's subconscious” (Anastasopoulou 23). The first time that she manages to swim on her own, is used by Chopin to represent the first major step that Edna takes in her awakening. It is through the vast and untamed expanse of the sea that Edna is able to realize that there is something beyond society that she can strive to achieve. As she swims out into the sea Chopin describes Edna as “reaching out for the unlimited in which to lose herself”
…show more content…
As she returns to the sea to kill herself Edna experiences visions of herself as a child in the blue-grass meadow. As she steps out into the ocean Edna sees “A bird with a broken wing was beating the air above, reeling, fluttering, circling disabled down, down to the water” (Chopin 175). This image of the bird, is one that is used by Chopin from the opening phrases of the novel and continues through the very end. The image of the bird is one that comes to symbolize Edna throughout the story. The novel opens with the image of a bird in a cage. “A green and yellow parrot, which hung in a cage outside the door” (Chopin 43). The parrot is trapped inside the cage speaking a language that no one understands with no way to escape much like Edna Pontellier is trapped in society and is not understood by those around her. While Edna is symbolized by the parrot, the cage symbolizes society, as pointed out by Robert White in his piece Inner and Outer Space in ‘The Awakening.’ “The cage of marriage is but an inner cell in the prison-house of femininity, of womanhood, which the nineteenth century had constructed for its women”
As she returns to the sea to kill herself Edna experiences visions of herself as a child in the blue-grass meadow. As she steps out into the ocean Edna sees “A bird with a broken wing was beating the air above, reeling, fluttering, circling disabled down, down to the water” (Chopin 175). This image of the bird, is one that is used by Chopin from the opening phrases of the novel and continues through the very end. The image of the bird is one that comes to symbolize Edna throughout the story. The novel opens with the image of a bird in a cage. “A green and yellow parrot, which hung in a cage outside the door” (Chopin 43). The parrot is trapped inside the cage speaking a language that no one understands with no way to escape much like Edna Pontellier is trapped in society and is not understood by those around her. While Edna is symbolized by the parrot, the cage symbolizes society, as pointed out by Robert White in his piece Inner and Outer Space in ‘The Awakening.’ “The cage of marriage is but an inner cell in the prison-house of femininity, of womanhood, which the nineteenth century had constructed for its women”