Edna Pontellier Symbolism In The Awakening

In Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, Edna Pontellier defies the social norms in the 1899 patriarchal society she lives in. This society expects her to live as the ideal mother and wife, even though Edna desires to swim free in a sea of lust. The lady in black similarly compares to the grim reaper of young love, what Edna desires; like the grim reaper, she dresses in black and resigns to solitude. The two lovers represent what Edna dreams of having, not with her husband, but with a younger man, Robert, who awakens her true sexuality. Edna’s only true way to be an independent and free woman is through death; her young love comes to an end when she dies. By the sea, where the lovers are frequently followed by the deadly, lady in black, Edna dies. The

“[The two lovers are literally like] […] water oaks bent from the sea,” figuratively showing the dependency of the lovers on each other and the sexual connection between the sea and love (15). “[… With] not a particle of earth beneath [the lovers’] feet,” they walk as if they are not on earth (15). When “[the lovers] tread upon blue ether,” synesthesia is in the blue description of a colorless, pleasant smelling liquid; just as Edna confuses her smell and sight of the two lovers, so too does she confuse lust and love (21). Just as the sea the lovers’ walk upon appears to be too delicate to exist in this world, so too are Edna’s desires of sexuality unfit for the confined society (21). “[Edna …] think[s] of Robert Lebrun [not her husband]” exemplifying the man Edna is supposed to love, is not the man she marries, but is the young man she falls in love with at Grand Isle (77). “Two young lovers […] exchange[…] their hearts’ yearnings beneath the children’s tent” insisting the couple having sex under, ironically, an innocent covering (15).” [T]he water” appears to be a servility in which Edna hopes “there [is] a hand [to] reach out and reassure her” showing the love and sexuality Edna hopes she can acquire from Robert, whom attempts to teach Edna how to swim

They only appear at Grand Isle, near the ocean, where, ironically, Edna commits suicide. The lovers and the lady in black forebode Edna’s death. “[The demure] lady in black tell[s] her beads,” showing the society’s conformity still impacts a widowed woman, for she continues to resign in solitude, where neither independence nor strength shows (2). Ironically, Edna exemplifies the complete opposite; she “habitual neglects [her] children,” defying the convention expected of mothers (5). “[Edna’s] husband seem[s] to her now like a person whom she married without love,” which, also, shows refusal of the uniformity and confinement the society expects of women (77). Instead of calling Leonce a man, he is described as “a person” that Edna marries, exemplifying him as another individual that compares to a woman, showing Edna’s want for independence from this patriarchal society that oppresses woman (77). “[Edna loves Robert],” (82) and they both are young just like the “two young lovers,” foreshadowing death to this love that excludes itself from the social norms (15). Just as “the shore [is] far behind [Edna] and her strength [is] gone,” so too does Edna realize the dreams of swimming in her sexual desires only becomes the place where she frees herself from the patriarchal and oppressed society with death