The Voice of the Sea in The Awakening
Many different symbols were utilized in Kate Chopin's The Awakening to illustrate the underlying themes and internal conflict of the characters. One constant and re-emerging symbol is the sea.
The voice of the sea is seductive, never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander for a spell in abysses of solitude; to lose itself in mazes of inward contemplation. The voice of the sea speaks to the soul. The touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace (Chopin 25).
In the novel, “the ocean symbolizes Edna's "awakening" to a life filled with freedom and independence” (Nickerson). On a hot summer evening Robert and Edna go bathing. Although Edna does not wish to go and initially declines his offer, something inside is compelling her to go down to the water. It is there in the seductive ocean that Edna's awakening begins.
A certain light was beginning to dawn dimly within her... [she] 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 (Chopin 25).
That warm ocean environment is in direct contrast to the responsibilities and rules of the cold, hard city. And it is there in that relaxed and forgiving atmosphere that Edna can explore her new found freedoms.
While relaxing on the beach with Mrs. Ratignolle, the sight of the endless ocean brings back memories from Edna's childhood. She suddenly recalls a summer day in Kentucky and "a meadow that seemed as big as the ocean to the very little girl...and I felt as if I must walk on forever without coming to th...
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... on, thinking of the bluegrass meadow...believing that it had no beginning and no end" (Chopin 190). It is there in the ocean that she first realizes her physical, mental, and emotional potential. It is only natural that the water, which has seduced her with its sound reclaims her.
Throughout the story the ocean represented Edna's constant struggle for self-realization and independence. From her first flow of emotion on the beach to her last breath of life in the sea, the ocean beckons her. The voice of the sea lures her onward in her journey toward liberation and empowerment.
Works Cited
Bloom, Harold. Kate Chopin. New York : Chelsea House Publishers, 1987.
Chopin, Kate. The Awakening. 1993: Bedford Books, New York.
Nickerson, Meagan. "Romanticism in The Awakening", The Kate Chopin Project. America On-line. February 2000.
It will be the contention of this paper that much of Tolkien's unique vision was directly shaped by recurring images in the Catholic culture which shaped JRRT, and which are not shared by non-Catholics generally. The expression of these images in Lord of the Rings will then concern us.
The book begins and ends with Edna and her attraction to the water. Throughout the story, water plays a symbolic part in the unfolding of Edna and her relationship to Robert and also her awakening to a new outlook on life along with an independence that takes her away from her family and the socially constraining life in which she no longer can see herself a part of. Edna and Robert are at the beach enjoying each others company. They quickly return to the cottage where Leonce is, and he talks to them. They have had a good time down by the water and Leonce, being the proper business man that he is, does not understand why Robert would rather spend his time chatting with his wife than attending to other things.
Tolkien, John Ronald Reuel, Humphrey Carpenter, and Christopher Tolkien. The Letters Of J.R.R. Tolkien. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH), 1981. Web. .
Chopin, Kate. The Awakening. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Nina Baym. New York: W.W. Norton, 2007. 535-625. Print.
Ranging from caged parrots to the meadow in Kentucky, symbols and settings in The Awakening are prominent and provide a deeper meaning than the text does alone. Throughout The Awakening by Kate Chopin, symbols and setting recur representing Edna’s current progress in her awakening. The reader can interpret these and see a timeline of Edna’s changes and turmoil as she undergoes her changes and awakening.
In her article, Maria Anastasopoulou writes how ‘’Edna…is an individual who undergoes a change of consciousness that is designated by the concept of the awakening in the title of the novel’’ (19). The novel, as Anastosopoulou continues, is about the ‘’emerging individuality of a woman who refuses to be defined by the prevailing stereotype of passive femininity’’ (20). At the beginning, Chopin writes how her husband looked at Edna ‘’as one looks at a valuable piece of personal property which has suffered some damage’’ (4). Edna accepts this submissive position, unlike Margaret. She goes about her life rather passively, a subordinate to her husband. Her first awakening into a defiant, back-boned character, begins in chapter three. ‘’It was strange and unfamiliar; it was a mood’’ (15) is how Chopin describes the stirring of her awakening. When she looks out, the sea is described as a ‘’seductive, never ceasing, whispering, clamouring, murmuring-‘’ (34) creature. A symbol of her soul, it was now rising. Like Margaret Hale, she had resisted social normal, but, unlike Margaret, Edna was quiet about her beliefs. The more Edna becomes her true self, the more atmospheric the novel becomes. Chopin differs from other novels in the way the novel develops from realism to more of an atmospheric
The imagery of the ocean at Grand Isle and its attributes symbolize a force calling her to confront her internal struggles, and find freedom. Chopin uses the imagery of the ocean to represent the innate force within her soul that is calling to her. "The voice of the sea is seductive; never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander for a spell in abysses of solitude; to lose itself in a maze of inward contemplation." (p.14) Through nature and its power, Edna, begins to find freedom in her soul and then returns to a life in the city where reside the conflicts that surround her. Edna grew up on a Mississippi plantation, where life was simple, happy, and peaceful. The images of nature, which serve as a symbol for freedom of the soul, appear when she speaks of this existence. In the novel, she remembers a simpler life when she was a child, engulfed in nature and free: "The hot wind beating in my face made me think - without any connection that I can trace - of a summer day in Kentucky, of a meadow that seemed as big as the ocean to the very little girl walking through the grass, which was higher than her waist.
Carpenter, Humphery, Christopher Tolkien and J.R.R. Tolkien. The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2000. Print.
Edna's awakening begins with her vacation to the beach. There, she meets Robert Lebrun and develops an intense infatuation for him, an infatuation similar to those which she had in her youth and gave up when she married. The passionate feelings beginning to overwhelm her are both confusing and exciting. They lead to Edna beginning to ponder what her life is like and what she is like as a person. The spell of the sea influences these feelings which invite "the soul . . . to lose itself in mazes of inward contemplation" (Chopin 57). Edna begins to fall under the sea's spell and begins to evaluate her feelings about the life that she has.
In the Introduction to his translation of Beowulf, R. M. Liuzza suggests that the poem establishes “a kind of spiritual solidarity between the pagan past and the Christian present” (30). While the poem certainly establishes a solidarity between the two beliefs, the way the two intertwine throughout the poem suggests that it is more of a melting pot of the two beliefs, rather than just a “spiritual connection.” The melting pot of the two religions is displayed during Beowulf’s fights against the three monsters: Grendel, Grendel’s Mother, and the dragon. The poem Beowulf creates a melting pot of Pagan and Christian beliefs that reflect the period of transition between Paganism and Christianity.
...a and her response to it at the beginning of the fifth stanza. The speaker being “followed” by the sea shows its hunt after her. Repeating the pronoun “He” alerts us to her continuing terror after she escapes the immediate site of the vulnerability. The sexualized motions of the sea follows the speaker’s that signal a transformation from the sexual aggressor to just a responsive partner from the sea’s part. When the speaker’s sexual urges and energies awakened or started, they outstrip those of the previous aggressive sea and exceed them in enjoinment. The repetition of “he” serves to discriminate the speaker’s state of arousal from the sea. When the speaker defines herself in terms “ankle” and “shoes,” she domesticates limits the irresistible sea with only these two phrases “his Silver Heel” and “ Pearl” because she restricts the sea to rise higher that her ankle.
In conclusion I believe that Tolkien is a great writer. He has given the world a new look on books. Through all of that he has given us a new look a literature in general
Tolkien, J.R.R. Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. New York, New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1954. Print.
can have a net-worth of 300 times the family average, which is 15,000 dollars, thus
Urang, Gunnar. "J. R. R. Tolkien: Fantasy and the Phenomenology of Hope" Fantasy in the Writing of J. R. R. Tolkien. United Press, 1971