The Sirens Song- the Awakening/ chopin

The sea for Edna serves as a catalyst for her awakening because it operates as a sanctuary of freedom and a diversion from societal ties. Edna’s sea operates as a symbol of self-knowledge outside away from the shore. Her first swim is a baptism, a rebirth of a new self -propelled identity. In chapter two Edna’s eyes are transfixed upon the water, similar to RIP’s gaze upon the Hudson River, This stati

As Edna removes her clothing an internal voyeuristic view is sensed wherein there is a demarcation and Edna is unable to align her internal and private self and her external social sphere. As a final affirmation of her freedom, Edna disrobes and stands naked on the beach nearly to embark on her final swim. She discarded her final materialistic constriction in her life when she was bare on the beach. When she commits suicide she has shed everything in her quest for self-hood and in a baptismal attempt immerses herself in the lost innocence of her soul.. In addition the symbolic fading of clothing is relevant to the overall motif because the garments illustrate the worn out social rules and the denial of conventional society. The garment metaphor shapes the narration. For instance, when Robert leaves for Mexico Edna’s feels like her existence is, “ like a faded garment which seems to be no longer worth wearing” Throughout the novel when Edna sheds more clothing and more material objects she is immersed in a sentiment of unadulterated freedom.

With the stroke of a brush, Chopin is able to create a work of art inundated with expressive and descriptive symbolism that generates the overall motif of the Emersonian desire for self assertion. Like Emerson, Edna’s desires are rooted in her antinomian view of a free mind. In addition, like Emerson she has a nebulous notion of freedom because she is characterized by her oscillations between her multiple urges. Chopin’s vivid use of evocative imagery lends to a greater understanding of Edna’s inevitable decision to commit suicide. In contrast to the caged birds and the materially constrained women of her time, Edna at the conclusion of the novels feels totally free and self-possessed by the tantalizing sea. Her need to soar above the clouds, shed all materialistic layers and swim out into the great expanse of ocean water was a cyclical journey where Edna was faced with no other alternative than to end her life.

The sea for Edna contains the answer to her fate because the sea is endless and: “has no beginning and no end.” Learning to swim awakens Edna to her sensuality and passion, repressed at puberty for instance, the movement of the sea recalls memories of her sexual desire for a cavalry officer. The sea is a source of erotic desire that beckons and seduces her throughout the entire novel and speaks to her soul, enfolding her body in its embrace: “seductive; never ceasing, whispering, clamouring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander for a spell in abyss of solitude.” (558) In Edna’s final swim she does not glace back towards her attachments on the shore world rather she travels out toward the vast expanse of water ignoring what she may have left behind and accepting her fate. Her final swim represents the transcendence of the visionary quest. Readers watch her suicide with ironic detachment because her final swim leaves us with a resonant vast new potential that Edna has tragically discovered that there is

Some topics in this essay:
Hudson River, Isle Edna, Edna Pontellier, Finn Huck, Mademoiselle Reisz, Orleans Edna’s, Emerson Edna’s, Mademoiselle Reisz’s, Yellow Wallpaper”, Edna Arobin, final swim, “pigeon house”, sea edna, shore world, le grande isle, constraining clothing, le grande, commit suicide, edna’s desires, house “pigeon, house “pigeon house”, control body,