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Examples Of Freedom In The Awakening

1074 Words5 Pages

Rami Ridi
Ms. Lee
English III
15 March 2023
The Awakening - Freedom Within the Sea
To anyone, water can either be seen as a liquid that can be consumed, or it can be seen as one's safe haven. In The Awakening by Kate Chopin, Edna’s gradual build-up to her own awakening is steadily shown through the motif of water and swimming. Edna being a woman in the 1900s, she is unable to control her life due to the constraints from the man dominant society. She is tired of always being accused of not being a “mother figure” to her children by many people in her community and has become sick of this. To solve this, Edna seeks and endeavors her freedom and security in the sea to progressively develop into a more independent woman. Kate Chopin uses the motif …show more content…

After going out to dinner with some of her friends, Edna goes where she wants to feel safe, the sea. While Edna swims far out into the sea, there is an “unaccustomed expanse” of water that “assumed the aspect of a barrier” behind her (Chopin 20). The metaphorical barrier that the narrator builds between Edna and the sea is to separate Edna from anyone on land that does not think that she should fight for a society where men are not the dominant gender, the very people that are on the land. Also, the narrator utilizes the “unaccustomed expanse” of water in order to signify the unfamiliar depths of freedom and privilege that Edna has discovered when swimming further and further away from the beach and anyone that disagrees with her actions against society. Although Edna does become too greedy when her senses become “enfeebled” (Chopin 20). Edna comes to realize that even with all this freedom that she currently possesses while she is in the water, in the long run she will always be within the man dominant society that will bring her down whenever they can which causes her senses of freedom and liberation to weaken which ultimately evokes fear and ends up breaking the metaphorical barrier that she had initially created to blockade herself from the same society makes her want to be an independent woman. All in all, Edna feels overwhelmed with all the freedom that she achieved by taking risks, which is the reason why she is unable to follow her dreams of being an individualistic

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