Metaphors In The Awakening

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Kate Chopin, in her book The Awakening, utilizes various metaphors of birds to symbolize Edna in different lights, revealing the theme that freedom comes with a price. Chopin opens the book with the description of a caged bird, setting up the metaphor from the start. She describes the bird as a bird that “[hangs] in a cage” and it speaks “a language which nobody [understands]” (Chopin 3). Edna is the caged bird in this metaphor. She feels trapped in her marriage by her husband and kids, as most women are in this time period. Society expects her to never think of herself and always put her family first, like all women in this era; they are all birds trapped within the cage of societal expectations. Edna does not feel “at home in the society

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