symbolaw Symbols and Symbolism Essay - Symbolism in Kate Chopins The Awakening :: Chopin Awakening Essays

Symbolism in Kate Chopins The Awakening       Kate Chopins The Awakening is a literary gain full of symbolism. Birds, clothes, houses and other narrative elements are powerful symbols which add meaning to the novel and to the characters. I will analyze the most relevant symbols presented in Chopins literary work.   BIRDS   The images related to birds are the major symbolic images in the narrative from the very beginning of the novel   A green and yellow parrot, which hung in a cage in outside the door, kept repeating over and over   Allez vous-en Allez vous-en Sapristi Thats all right (pp3)   In The Awakening, caged birds serve as reminders of Ednas entrapment. She is caged in the roles as married woman and mother she is never expected to think for herself. Moreover, the caged birds symbolize the entrapment of the Victorian women in general. Like the parrot, the womens movements are limited by the rules of society.   In this first chapter, the parrot speaks in a language which nobody understood (pp3). The parrot is not able to communicate its feelings just want Edna whose feelings are difficult to understand, incomprehensible to the members of Creole society.   In contrast to caged birds, Chopin uses disturbed birds and the idea of flight as symbols of freedom. This symbol is shown in a vision of a bird experienced by Edna while Mademoiselle Reisz is playing the piano.   When she comprehend it there came before her imagination the figure of a man standing beside a desolate rock on the seashore. He was naked. His attitude was one of impossible resignation as he looked toward a distant bird winging its flight away from him. (pp26-27)   In this vision Edna is showing her desire for freedom, desire for escaping from her roles as wife and mother, from her husband Léonce who keeps her in a social cage.   After these episodes, the images related to birds are absent form the narrative until the chapter 29. Following the summer on Grand Isle, where she had awakening experiences, she starts to express her desire for independence in New Orleans through her move to her own house, the pigeon house because its so small and looks like a pigeon house (pp 84).