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

two lovers represent Edna’s burning desire to find love, and the widowed lady in black symbolizes and foreshadows the death that lingers around waiting to kill young love.
Just as “Edna attempt[s] all summer to learn to swim,” (27) so too does she try to connect with her sensual and sexual desires just like the “[t]wo young lovers” are connected to the sea (15).

“[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

(27).
The lady in black exemplifies the death that patiently lingers around and gradually gets closer to ending a love that defies the expected conventions. The lady in black walks alone dressed in dark, lament clothes exemplifying a widow. “[The] lady in black walk[s] demurely up and down, telling her beads,” literally showing a modest woman still true to her devotions after her husband’s death, figuratively showing a woman confined by a patriarchal society because of her silence and faithfulness to her husband even though he is dead (2). “The lady in black read[s] her morning devotions,” mourning for the death of her husband and for the death of her love (15). Just as an animal prowls along looking for prey, so too does the woman “walk” as if searching for young love on which she preys and brings death (2). “[She] sits on the porch of a neighboring bath-house,” now closer to the lovers, from first wandering and now sitting and watching, exhibiting the first sight of the lovers and awaited kill of their love because young love in this society is the equivalent to death (15). “The lady in black, creeping behind [the lovers], look[s] trifle paler and more jaded than usual” literally showing the apathy and tiredness of the woman as she follows the lovers figuratively showing death awaits restlessly for the young lovers’ love to come to an end (21). “[F]ollowing them at no great distance” death breathes on the lovers shoulders; the lady in black readies herself to end the defying love (32).
Both the lady in black and the two lovers make appearances together to show the relation between love and death.

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

(114).
Through death only is Edna free. The “pigeon house please[es] [Edna],” since, ironically, Edna possesses more freedom cooped up in her new unconfined home, but even there she does not fully awakened to freedom (94). Edna feels a “relie[f] from her obligations” which “add[s] to her strength and expansion as an individual” showing the freedom Edna feels escaping to an individualistic, awakened world of matriarchy and, ironically, sex, which she still needs men for. “[Edna is] no longer […] content to feed upon opinion” because her “own soul invite[s] her,” Edna’s defiance to the convention of uniformity the society yearns for, also shows strength and individuality, which summons her to end the conformity and be free (95). “[Edna stands] naked in the open air, at the mercy of the sun,” Eve-like, showing the innocence lost and the death that will soon follow (115). “She [feels] like some new-born creature,” similarly to Christ, as if walking into the sea and into her death is like a rebirth where she finally is free.
Edna defies the expected conventions of the patriarchal society by not being the mother and wife expected. Edna does not favor the womanly roles of caring for her children and expressing loyalty and love to her husband. Edna’s lack of obeying the roles and forced uniformity of familial roles causes her to be an anomaly. She possesses a desire for young love. The two lovers and a lady in black possess an important role foreboding and symbolizing that all young love in a confined society does not last, but only ends with death.