Summary Of Kate Chopin's 'The Awakening'

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Recommended: The title Awakening signify

Yingci Chen
Kelli Mackay
IB English 4
22 April 2015
The Awakening The novel The Awakening is written by Kate Chopin in 1899 which shocked the readers with its honest treatment of female infidelity. Edna Pontellier is a married woman that is trapped in a stifling marriage. She then seeks to find the love and freedom that she desires with Robert Lebrun and Alcee Arobin. She broke her role of an ideal “mother woman” in her society and discover her true identity as being independent and passionate about what she desires. The novel began with a parrot that was locked in the cage screaming “Allez vous-em! Allez vous-en! Sapristi!” in the house on Esplanade Street. It was “a green and yellow parrot” that symbolizes that situation Edna is in. She is imprisoned in the wealthy and pretty cage, the house that Leonce locks her in. With the parrot screaming in the beginning of the novel it emphasizes the …show more content…

“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” as she swims in the sea. When Edna learns how to swim she feels the power that she has in controlling herself without obeying anyone. Her action of teaching herself how to swim and “want to swim where no woman swam before” symbolizes empowerment, independence and freedom. The sea represents baptizing and rebirth which baptized Edna and awakened her. Even though it was the sea who awakened Edna’s self-awareness, but it was also the sea where Edna commit suicide.
The music that was played by Mademoiselle Reisz also awakened the soul that was sleeping in Edna. “The very first chords which Mademoiselle Reisz struck upon the piano sent a keen tremor down Mrs. Pontellier’s spinal column.” It was the first time for Edna to feel the emotional power of music and the message that Mademoiselle Reisz wants to express though each

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