How Does Kate Chopin Use Birds In The Awakening

In Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, birds are used as a symbol for Edna to describe how Edna changes against societies standards as she gains independence. The birds are parallel and foreshadow Edna. The Awakening starts with birds to show the current status of Edna and women. At the beginning of the novel, there is a parrot shrieking at Mr. Pontellier in Spanish while stuck in it’s cage. The parrot shows how Edna is locked in to societies standards by her husband and the community because of the time period and how women had no freedom. The parrot squawking gives a voice to Edna and how she would like to go against her husband but cannot because of society. The parrot speaking in French shows how women were not understood and cannot communicate with the rest of society at that time period. The parrot foreshadows what will occur to Edna and how she will gain a voice later on in the story …show more content…
At the end of the novel, Edna goes to the sea which leads to her seeing a bird with a broken wing that is falling. The bird with the broken wings shows how the idea of independence for women is broken and ends up failing at that time. It connects to the shift for Edna because she is at the beach after going through a shift in ideas. She had realized that her ideas of independence aren’t something anyone will understand after she meets with Robert and he tells her he wants to marry her. Edna's beliefs were that she wanted to be a free person without getting married to anyone and seeing Robert leads to her ideas being changed and she realizes how society isn't accustomed to her ideas yet, as if it was a broken wing. The bird shows that part of society, when it's falling down, because the broken wing is what brought Edna down. The bird foreshadows how Edna will commit suicide because the bird falling will end up dying with no help, and Edna didn't have any help, which leads to her