The Awakenings Symbolic Significance Of The Sea :: essays research papers fc

&65279In the novel, The Awakening, Kate Chopin tells the story of a young marry wo earth,Edna Pontellier, who, while enjoying her summer holidays at a cottage on a beach with herfamily, meets a young humankind by the name of Robert Lebrun. Edna, who is not really in love withher husband, begins to take hold mixed feelings and, as a result, begins to realize who she truly is.Edna feels that something is lacking in her life. The author uses the marine to impersonate andsymbolize what is missing in Ednas life--the love of a man and freedom of the soul. On several occasions Chopin uses the sea as a personification of Ednas longing for thelove of a man. Although Edna is married, she does not have the feelings for her husband whichcoincide with being in love. In one example, Chopin describes the sea The articulation of the sea isseductive never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander for aspell in abysses of solitude, to lose itself in mazes of contem plation (13). The sea calls to EdnaThe voice of the sea speaks to the soul. The touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body inits blue-blooded , close embrace (13). Chopin is describing the sea as though it was a man with whomEdna is in love and for whom she feels a unvoiced attraction, not just psyche she can make loveto but someone she can capable herself in. Later, the young man, Robert Lebrun, who is stirring upall these feelings in Edna, asks her if she is going liquified she answers him no and tells himshe is too tired. Chopin describes Ednas actions afterwards Her glance wandered from hisface away toward the Gulf, whose sonorous murmur reached her like a loving but imperativeentreaty (12). Chopin is projecting Ednas feelings for Robert, whether Edna is conscious ofthese feelings or not, onto the sea because a part of Edna does want to go swimming with him.Edna also has a strong need for freedom and Chopin, with respect to Ednas character,makes reference to the sea to let loose this need. On one occasion, Edna and Madame Ratignolle,her neighbour for the summer, are sunbathing on the beach. Madame asks Edna to where hermind is wandering. Edna tells her the ocean is bringing back a memory of a field in Kentuckywhich, as a child, she had run through with arms stretched out in the breeze as though swimming