Option #5 Hrisa K

Option #5

Kate Chopin’s book, The Awakening, mainly takes place in the late 1800s in Grand Isle, a summer holiday resort nearby New Orleans. Edna Pontellier is vacationing with her husband, Leonce, and their two sons at the cottages of Madame Lebrun. Edna spends most of her time with her friend Adele Ratignolle, a motherly women who is the perfect wife. Through her relationship with Adele, Edna learns a great deal about freedom of expression, this is because Creole women were expected and assumed to be “chaste”. This exposure to a new way of expression liberates Edna from her previously prudish behavior and repressed emotions and desires for life’s experiences. In my opinion, this relationship with Adele is when Edna begins her journey of wakefulness and self-discovery, which continues through out the book until she allows herself to drown in a sea of her emotions. 

Chopin used motifs such as art, birds, wakefulness, and swimming to convey profound messages through out the story. Edna’s art was used as an outlet for self-exploration, expression and rebellion. Swimming was used a form of inner strength and the depth within, but from my prospective the bird motif was the most significant and constant throughout the book. The bird was used as a symbol of freedom and even as a lack of freedom. Like the birds, Edna movements are limited by society, and they are unable to communicate with the world around them. Bird wings were also frequently referenced, the books’ “winged” women may only use their wings to protect and shield, like Adele does for her children. Also before Edna decides to take her life she imagined, “A bird with a broken wing was beating the air above, reeling, fluttering, circling disabled down, down to the water.” (Chopin 108) The birds’ broken wing could be describing all of the struggles Edna experienced through out her awakening, with her defiance of social norms, relationships with men, and constant yearn for freedom.

Although I would not recommend this book to a friend, I personally liked it and can also understand why it is an important piece of literature. Kate Chopin did a great job writing this book and she too went against norms to publish such a risqué story during her time period. I did not relate to Edna, and was disappointed in the ending, but I respect that she wanted to break through the chains of social norms and admire that she strived for independence and self-exploration.