Symbols In The Awakening

Around the late 1800s and early 1900s, there were fixed roles for men and women as dictated by a male dominated society. The Awakening, written by Kate Chopin in 1899, can be taken to show how some women of that particular time felt confined. They were expected to be everything: a caring mother, a loving wife, a social friend. In The Awakening, the main character, Edna, decides to veer off from that path of what is socially expected from her, and in such creates her own desolation. She opts to satisfy herself over what she is accountable for. In the end, there could be no happy ending for her because of this. Chopin assimilates many motifs and symbols including minor characters to contrast Edna’s complications with her own identity and place
In doing so, Chopin indicates the realization about the consequences of Edna’s love through the young lovers and the lady in black.
We are first introduced to the young couple in the beginning of the book. Edna and her friend Adele sit on the beach together and look around at their surroundings. Two young, unnamed lovers sit nearby. They are “exchanging their hearts’ yearnings beneath the children’s tent…” (15). This is the beginning of Edna's awakening. Edna’s husband, Leonce, occasionally shows his love through material gifts, and more than often shows his frustration through anger. During this point on the beach, Edna acknowledges that her marriage was “purely an accident” because it was “not for her in this world,”(18). She is fond of Leonce but feels her marriage has no passion like the young couple. The lovers are passionate, beautiful, and optimistic to the future. They represent the beginning of Edna's relationship with her husband, a vision which did not turn out the way she had hoped. Leonce takes their roles in