The Sea In The Awakening

In The Awakening, Kate Chopin ends the novel in a vastly different way than most authors would have at that time with her main character, Edna Pontellier, committing suicide by drowning herself. If one were to isolate this ending without any context whatsoever, it would feel tragic and depressing; however, the events leading up to her death actually explains to the readers her spiritual reassessment and moral reconciliation, both of which being themes significant to the book as a whole.

The ending of Kate Chopin’s The Awakening is both controversial and thought provoking. Many see Edna Pontellier’s suicide as the final stage of her “awakening”, and the only way that she will ever be able to truly be free. Edna’s suicide, however, is nothing more than her final attempt to escape from her life. Edna Pontellier’s life has become too much for her to handle, and by committing suicide she is simply escaping the oppression she feels from her marriage, the suppression she feels from her children, and the failure of her relationship with Robert.

   Throughout her novel, The Awakening, Kate Chopin uses symbolism and imagery to portray the main character's emergence into a state of spiritual awareness. The image that appears the most throughout the novel is that of the sea. “Chopin uses the sea to symbolize freedom, freedom from others and freedom to be one's self” (Martin 58). The protagonist, Edna Pontellier, wants that freedom, and with images of the sea, Chopin shows Edna's awakening desire to be free and her ultimate achievement of that freedom.

This is the point in the story where Edna starts listening to her voices inside her gives into her inner desires. She continues to struggle with the fact that she married out of convenience and she has two sons that she really does not want to mother as well as the fact that she loves being an artist. In chapter x, Edna goes to the sea only to realize that all her swimming lesson had finally paid off that summer and she was swimming. Chopin describes this even like a baby finally getting enough confidence to walk and the baby walks realizing its own strength and power. While swimming, she soon gets tired and has quick feeling overcome her of the possibility of drowning but quickly swims back to shore. She has conquered her greatest fear and now feels like a new woman that is no longer afraid of her true feelings. Edna’s affair with Robert continues and he eventually leaves Grand Isle and her and her family returns home.

Edna states, “The voice of the sea is seductive, never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander in abysses of solitude...to lose itself in mazes of inward contemplation”(Chopin 17). Chopin utilizes practical uses of water to show Edna’s nonconformity and foreshadows the end of the novel. Kathryn Seidel states, “Edna begins her journey by discovering the limitations of domesticity as exemplified by the confining roles of wife and “mother-woman”; Chopin approached her novel from a background of local color and domestic fiction but with a sense of its limitations”(236). By incorporating swimming and sunbathing, Chopin reveals her underlying theme. Beginning in chapter one with the way Mr.Pontellier looks at his wife as a damaged possession after stating, “You are burnt beyond recognition”(Chopin 5). This shows how women were treated in this time period; therefore, Edna felt the power to break the social norm of objectivity of women. Towards the middle of the book, Edna experiences her first swim. The narrator states, “She turned her face seaward to gather in an impression of space and solitude which the vast expanse of water...as she swam she seemed to be reaching out for the unlimited in which to lose herself”(Chopin 32). Edna’s first swim symbolizes her awakening moment. As she swims, she feels like she is “reaching out for the unlimited”

In the Heart of the Sea, is a book that can transport us to a different time, where there is adventure, but also suffering. It is the story of a tragedy, that contains many other stories inside and just with the first chapter- if we read between the lines- we can discover more than just the history behind the title, we can also discover the situations, the problems and the culture that let us know how things worked many years ago. It is not a fairy tale, it is the beginning of what happened in the heart of the

The ocean, represented in Chopin’s novel, underscores liberation through nonconformity and independence, but also destruction through its solitude and waves of uncontrollable power. For instance, when Edna embarks on a boat excursion to the Chênière Caminada for mass, Chopin reveals that Edna felt as if “she were being borne away from some anchorage which had held her fast, whose chains had been loosening...leaving her free to drift whithersoever she chose to set her sails” (Chopin 34). Thus, Edna’s first outing away from the Grand Isle serves to awaken her in the sense of sailing away from the limitations of societal norms in which she feels trapped. This is further underscored through Chopin’s symbolic use of an anchor, as it represents the heavy weight of which Edna feels burdened by societal customs. In addition, Edna reveals to Robert that she has “been seeing the waves and the white beach of Grand Isle” (Chopin 100) while he was away in Mexico. Waves are often associated with uncontrolled activity; as such, the ones of which Edna speaks of may symbolize that her rebellion against

“The voice of the sea is seductive; never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, and inviting the soul to wander for a spell in the abysses of solitude; to lose itself in mazes of inward contemplation." (Chopin 13). Edna was a person that found passion within arts of life, her admiration to her most intimate friend who had the gift of writing, a personal way of expressing, as well as Mademoiselle Reisz who played the piano with a passion that broke tradition for which Edna was the only one to appreciate it, Mademoiselle Reisz music evoked a waking with Edna 's body and soul that could not compare to nothing else - "But the very passions themselves were aroused within her soul, swaying it lashing it as the waves daily beat upon her splendid body. She trembled, she was choking, and the tears blinded her"(Chopin 27). Approximating the end of the summer Edna also nears a personal growth within, she learns to swim, simply ineffable to Edna but ordinary to many other people would not care for its gift, she learned to swim and she went as far into the ocean where no woman had swum before, a point in Edna 's life that prepares her to open herself up for new choices. She choices to find shelter in a man that had aroused herself as a young beautiful woman, she choices to dream and long for Robert Lebrun like the other forbidden men in her childhood, but its only when she returns to her charming home on

Edna’s suicide was victory of self-expression. Edna undergoes a gradual awakening process in which portrays not to only her newly established independence from the constraints of her husband, but also her ability to go against the social norms of society in order to individually express herself. Her suicide encompases the question and critique of living life through the perspective of society such as being responsible for taking care of the kids, cleaning the house, and entertaining any guests that the husband may have over anytime. In the first couple of capters, the novel is quick to emphasize the gerneralized roles kthat are placed onto females, making it apparent that fe,ales are expected to successfully fulfil these roles. For example, Leonce enters home after being out and stated one of the kids had a fever. Edna was certain the child had no fever but Leonce belittles her capability as a mother for indifference with him. “If it was not a mother’s place to look after the children, whose on earth was it?” (27capac).

Though it was uncommon during the 1800’s, some women didn’t want to assume the traditional role of a typical Victorian lady. Such is the case in Kate Chopin 's The Awakening; she introduces us to Edna Pontellier a mother and wife during the said era. Throughout the story, we follow Edna 's journey of self-discovery and self-expression through emotions, art, and sex thanks to the help of people she meets along the way. Chopin decides to end the book with Edna’s suicide in an attempt to convey a sense of liberation from her repressed life, but was the reasoning behind her suicide what everyone else thinks? Consequently, this said journey took me along for the ride, and I had no complaints. As Edna figured out who she was, I felt as if I was

Many times however, her rebellion is seen as selfish childishness to others. Breaking the rules and finding her true happiness is what awakens Edna Pontellier and makes her different from the rest. She rebels against society by thinking differently, finding independence, doing what she wants without obeying her husband, moving out to her new "pigeon-house", and taking part in two adulterous affairs. Her climatic finale, her suicide, is her ultimate act of rebellion, not giving the ways of the world, her decision to finally be free. ‘‘She went on and on. She remembered the night she swam far out, and recalled the terror that seized her at the fear of being unable to regain the shore. She did not look back now, but went on and on, thinking of the blue-grass meadow that she had traversed when a little child, believing that it had no beginning and no end.’’ (Chopin, 120) All her rebellious actions are what make Edna such a controversial, yet influential woman till this

After returning from vacation, Edna is a changed woman. When her husband and children are gone, she moves out of the house and purses her own ambitions. She starts painting and feeling happier. “There were days when she was very happy without knowing why. She was happy to be alive and breathing when her whole being seemed to be one with the sunlight, the color, the odors, the luxuriant warmth of some perfect Southern day” (Chopin 69). Her sacrifice greatly contributed to her disobedient actions.

The remaining question for the reader is: Does Edna's suicide show that she succeeded or failed in her struggle for independence?

Edna Pontellier as a character is an Interesting topic amongst scholars who have read The Awakening by Kate Chopin. The topic of her suicide is the focal point of such discussion. Weather it was an act of heroism, or the downfall of an already pitiful woman. While it may be easy to characterize suicide as a “coward's” death it's not good to be so hasty. Looking at Edna as a character one can see a woman who is clearly more progressive than the time she was in. Edna had always been on a different wavelength than her peers. One that means she was different, unpredictable, and outcast. However this isn't the case, Edna should be praised for her courage and heroism towards the

Unlike most women at the time, Edna refuses to conform to simply being a housewife. Edna tells Madame Ratignolle, “I would give up the unessential; I would give my money, I would give my life for my children; but I wouldn’t give myself.” indicating that even in the early stages of her awakening she had accounted herself more pretentious than society proclaims. At the end of the story Edna stands by her word by ending her life due to the level of unhappiness she was feeling. A housewife of those times would have simply lived her life unhappy and suffered until she possibly couldn’t. Edna on the other hand, chose to take actions into her own hands and take control of what is to happen in her life resulting in her suicide.