The Awakening: My Critical Essay

The canary helps her remember the joy she had singing. The canary is something she could care for and love. ”If there had been years and years of nothing, then a bird to sing to you, it would be awful-still-after the bird was still” (Glaspell 557). The bird’s cage defines how when she marries Mr. Wright she became trapped in his cage. The broken door symbolizes that she was a broken woman barely hanging on to hope. Mr. Wright cruel and unjust treatment to her and the bird causes retaliation. When he snapped the canary’s neck she is forced to kill him.

Motifs in The Awakening play an extremely significant role in identifying the development of characters and contribute to the overall theme of the novel. Birds are one of the first motifs seen in the beginning of the novel starting with a caged parrot yelling “Allez vous-en! Sapristi!” which translates to “Go away! For Heaven’s sake!” This parrot represents Edna’s entrapment in the Victorian lifestyle where women are caged by their husbands and have limited freedom. Birds aren’t meant to be caged, but instead they are meant to soar free and fly, which is what Edna is attempting to do through the course of the novel. Through self discovery and exploration Edna believes that she must move to another house in order to escape her husband and responsibilities. Unfortunately, by moving to the pigeon house she is just trapped in another cage unable to free herself since she is constantly surrounded by reminders of her previous life. Birds serve to represent Edna and her struggle to break away from conventional Victorian society, which ultimately leads to her demise with the author’s final use of bird imagery: “A bird with a broken wing was beating the air above, reeling, fluttering, circling disabled down, down to the water.”

But they need not have thought that they could possess her, body and soul" (504).  Although Edna did perform her duties as a wife for some time, she is not the typical housewife.  She does not worship her husband or idolize her children, which makes both Edna and Leonce begin to sense that Edna is different from the other mother-women (Lin 1).  Edna never realized the reasons she neglected her duties as a wife until she fell in love with Robert and acknowledged that her desires and needs exist outside of her marriage.  Thus, after her experiences with Robert, Edna is ready to neglect her husband even more, because she now realizes that her husband is holding her back from her needs.  When Leonce tries to make Edna act like the other women that obey their husbands, his attempts to control Edna further instigate Edna's desire for independence from him.  For example, the scene when Edna is lying in the hammock, Leonce says: "I can't permit you to stay out there all night.  You must come in the house instantly," Edna replies: "I mean to stay out here.  I don't wish to go in, and I don't intend to.  Don't speak to me like that again; I shall not answer you" (492).  Edna is carefree and spirited, and she refuses to conform to her husband because she does not want to lose herself.  Becoming the perfect, obedient wife would mean losing her individuality, and Edna realizes she can gain no fulfillment

The Awakening begins in the vacation spot of Grand Isle. At first we believe that Grand Isle is a utopia, wealthy families relaxing at oceanside, but it is here where Edna first begins to realize her unhappiness. The first sign of dissatisfaction is when Edna allows herself to feel that her marriage is unsatisfying, yet she must agree with the other women that Leonce Pontellier is the perfect husband. Edna asks herself that if she has a good husband

Throughout The Awakening, a novel by Kate Chopin, the main character, Edna Pontellier showed signs of a growing depression. There are certain events that hasten this, events which eventually lead her to suicide.

“Mrs. Pontellier was beginning to realize her position in the universe as a human being, and to recognize her relations as an individual to the world within and about her” (547). She looked at and heard things as if for the first time. “The very first chords which Mademoiselle Reisz struck upon the piano sent a keen tremor down Mrs. Pontellier’s spinal column” (556). She decided that she would move out of her house with her husband and children and would move into a small apartment by herself. This is something that women of her day simple did not do. Edna was different.

Mademoiselle Reisz enlightened Edna on the idea that a bird who rises above the societal norms they were faces with must have strong wings or else it will fall back down. This bird with strong wings symbolizes the way in which Edna felt following her first swim. She felt invincible, and she felt as if she could accomplish anything she set her mind to—even if it was unheard of during the late 1800s. However, the advice Mademoiselle Reisz offered Edna unfortunately was used as a foreshadow for what was to come. The bird, Edna’s emotions and feelings, did fall back down and crash. This was evident after Robert left Edna a note, and she realized her chances at love were over. Not too long afterwards, Edna headed to swim one last time. On her way to the shore, she spotter a bird with a broken wing. This week bird was the last symbol of Edna’s feelings—she was broken hearted, depressed, and uncertain. However, she still chose to have the independence she fought for so long for, and she decided to end her life in the pit of all of the depression. She refused to allow anything else to be taken away. This emotional hill of rising and falling only demonstrates further all of the indifference Edna had to endure. The overall symbolism used by Chopin demonstrates both Edna’s actual situational difficulty and emotional difficulty that are pointed back

She leaves the care of her children to her grandmother, abandoning them and her husband when she leaves to live in the pigeon-house. To her, leaving her old home with Léonce is very important to her freedom. Almost everything in their house belonged to him, so even if he were to leave, she would still feel surrounded by his possessions. She never fully becomes free of him until she physically leaves the house. That way, Edna has no ties whatsoever to that man. Furthermore, Edna indulges in more humanistic things such as art and music. She listens to Mademoiselle Reisz’s playing of the piano and feels the music resonate throughout her body and soul, and uses it as a form of escapism from the world. Based on these instances, Edna acts almost like a very young child, completely disregarding consequences and thinking only about what they want to do experience most at that moment. However, to the reader this does not necessarily appear “bad”, but rather it is seen from the perspective of a person who has been controlled by others their entire life and wishes to break free from their grasp. In a way, she is enacting a childlike and subconscious form of revenge by disobeying all known social constructs of how a woman should talk, walk, act, and interact with others.

As the title of the novel reveals, awakenings are the most important as well as the most emotional parts of the story. Edna slowly awakens to her true self. She begins "daily casting aside that fictitious self which we assume like a garment with which to appear before the world." She creates her own awakenings with dreams and paintings (Gilbert 104). It is as if she tried to begin again, making a life that she could control and to become a new woman and be herself rather than what she was expected to be. Edna's awakenings were all a part of her defining her own self(Rosowski 44). She feared to have the conventional life that so many women had become trapped in. As she awakens, Edna becomes less and less traditional by stripping

Whether coerced or through self realizations, there were many awakenings in the book. The first was that Edna was not the traditional mother like Adèle, the second was that she enjoyed doing things for herself instead of for her children and husband. This second awakening is shown when Edna takes time to talk

The stepping stones in Edna’s awakening can be seen through symbols: birds, clothes, and even the ocean. The symbols of caged birds in The Awakening represent Edna’s entrapment as a wife and mother, along with all of the other Victorian women. When Leonce is sitting by the parrots reading his newspaper, the parrot spoke, “a language which nobody understood” (Chopin 5). Edna, just like the parrot, can not be understood. Edna can not communicate her feelings with others, her feelings being the “language” that nobody

The Awakening’s protagonist is Edna Pontellier; She is a twenty-eight years old mother of two. Consequently, her appearance is slight that of what a mother should look like, she possesses "quick and bright" eyes, which compliment her thick, wavy, yellowish brown hair" (9); While Edna 's physique is "poise and movement" (27). Despite this, Edna does not want to assume the role of a mother; Edna wants to be free from social assumptions of what a lady and even mother should be during the 1800’s. Independence is her goal, and she is not letting anything, or anyone gets in her way. This is why she has an affair with Robert Lebrun. Edna is symbolized in the story through multiple birds, which in the end tell a story in and of itself

When the saying is translated into English it means, Get out!  Get out!  Damn in!; the caged bird sends the message that Edna needs to get out of her marriage to make everything right in her life.  Like Edna, Nora is reflected as a trapped bird.  Nora, in "A Doll's House," is constantly referred to as a bird by her husband, Helmer.  As in the quote, "And I couldn't wish you anything but just what you are, my sweet little lark" (Ibsen 972).  Helmer show his ownership of Nora and how she is his little bird.  Unlike the image of a caged parrot, Nora is a bird trapped by the dominance of her husband.

In the literature “I know Why the Caged Bird Sings” the Exposition is “When I was three and Bailey four, we has arrived in the musty little town, we are from Long Beach, California, en route to Stamps, Arkansas, c/o Mrs. Annie Henderson. This passage give the introduction of three important characters in the story. It creates the tone by understanding that Marguerite and Bailey are moving to different states, and they do not sound excited at all. The Foreshadowing is when Marguerite AKA as Ritie said this in the passage “Bad nights my mother would take me in to speed with her, in the large bed with Mr. Freeman.” “It became a habit, I thought it was nothing strange about sleeping there. The clues and hints that

This is represented by Madame Lebrun's parrot and mocking-bird. Mr. Pontellier is annoyed by the birds' incessant chatter. However, "they had the right to make all the noise they wished" (43). Edna is caged, and she is doing what ever she can to be free within her limits. Mr. Pontellier is upset by his wife's struggles for freedom. She allows herself to fall in love with Robert, and purchases her own house, despite the wishes of her husband. Just as the birds have no concern that their singing may bother those outside their cage, so Edna does not care that her actions may negatively affect others. Just before Edna kills herself, she sees a "bird with a broken wing...beating the air above, reeling, fluttering, circling disabled down, down to the water" (175). Edna is this bird; disabled and heading to her death in the water. Her freedom is not total, and causes her death.