Symbolism in Kate Chopins The Awakening Essay - 1467 Words

Symbolism in Kate Chopins The Awakening Chopins The Awakening is full of symbolism. Rather than hit the reader on the head with blunt literalism, Chopin uses symbols to relay subtle ideas. Within each narrative segment, Chopin provides a symbol that the reader must fully understand in order to appreciate the novel as a whole. I will attempt to dissect some of the major symbols and give possible explanations as to their importance within the text. Art itself is a symbol of both freedom and failure. In her attempt to become an artist, Edna reaches the zenith of her awakening. She begins to truly understand pure art as a means of self-expression as well as self-assertion. In a similar way, Mlle. Reisz sees the path to†¦show more content†¦A division exists between her and her environment as well as between her social character and her awakening instincts (59). When she commits suicide she is finally naked, she has shed everything she has in her quest for selfhood. But it is not only Edna who is symbolized in clothes, Adele is more careful of her face in the seventh chapter and wears a veil. Both she and Madame Leburn constantly make clothes to cover the body, and the woman in black and Mlle. Reisz never change their clothes, symbolizing their distance from any physical attachment. There are several symbolic meals in the text and each stress mythic aspects in the text. The meal on Cheniere Caminada occurs after she awakens from a fairy tale sleep; the dinner party in chapter thirty is viewed by some as a re-creation of the Last Supper. There are many symbolic houses in the novel: the one on Grand Isle, the one in New Orleans, the pigeon house, the house in which Edna falls asleep on Cheniere Caminada. The first two of these houses serve as cages for Edna. She is expected to be a mother-woman on Grand Isle and to be the perfect social hostess in New Orleans. The other two are places of supposed freedom. On the island she can sleep and dream, and in the pigeon house she can create a world of her own. In the same way, places have a similar significance. Grand Isle itself is a place of women.Show MoreRelatedKate Chopins The Awakening is full of symbolism such as birds, clothes, houses and other narrative1200 Words   |  5 PagesKate Chopins The Awakening is full of symbolism such as birds, clothes, houses and other narrative elements are symbols with an extremely significant meaning. The birds are the major symbolic images from the very beginning of the novel: A green and yellow parrot, which hung in a cage outside the door, kept repeating over and over: `Allez vous-en! Allez vous-en! Sapristi! Thats all right! (Chopin pp3) In The Awakening, caged birds represent Ednas entrapment. She is caged as a wife and mother;Read More The Transformation of Edna Pontellier in The Awakening Essay950 Words   |  4 Pagesdid not know what† (Chopin). 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After its publication, The Awakening created such uproar that its author was alienated from certain social circles in St. Louis. The novel also contributed to rejections of Chopins later stories including, The Story of An Hour and The Storm. The heavy criticism that she endured for the novel hindered her writing. The male dominated world was simply not ready for such an honest exploration of female independence, a frank