Symbols in The Awakening

Abstract

Edna grew up in a puritan-basic family and lived her twenty-eight-year life in a fatherhood society. At the very beginning of the novel, Edna was not aware of her own feelings at all. Therefore, she was always obedient to playing the role which society appointed to her. Besides, she accepted her marriage to her husband and felt at ease even if she did not really love him. However, her attitude toward her marriage does not mean that Edna’s needlessness or unconsciousness of love. As a matter of fact, she was once very romantic and mentally and fell in love with a cavalry officer when she was still a little girl. Later, when she grew a little older she was again in love with a man who visited a neighboring plantation. After marrying her husband, Edna spontaneously thought of her marriage as the end of her passion and the beginning of her responsibility. Nonetheless, this kind of concept did not firmly root in Edna’s mind; on the other hand, it shook and was abandoned by Edna as soon as she got along with new people and was affected by them, whose candor and liberation from tradition was totally different from Edna no matter in thoughts or behaviors, when she was in a new place during the vacation. Edna changed so much that even her husband could not get used to her, for she no longer satisfied what she had and what she was expected to be; instead, she refused to be obedient and realized what she really wanted—freedom, and made every effort to pursue it. What’s more, she started recognizing her sexual desires and courageously faced them and acted on them regardless of the social or religious principles. Thus, this kind of development of Edna’s changes is “the awakening” same as the title which already implies the theme of this novel. The followings are symbols found in this novel, which abstractly suggest Edna’s awakening.