As the story begins we are immediately introduces to the importance of avian symbolism. The first spoken sentences of the novel, are curiously enough, squawked by a parrot rather than a main character or some other human. "Allez vous-en! Allez vous-en! Sapristi! That's all right!" (Chopin 3) are the words yelled by this crazed, caged bird. "Go away! Go away! For heaven's sake!" is the translation of this message into English. This message represents the forbidden and taboo thoughts racing through the mind of Edna Pontellier during her post-awakening period. Edna longs to leave her subservient role as the loving, submissive wife and mother that society forces on her. She longs for something more exciting, somet

Wordsworth Editions Limited, 1995. 3 - 117.

At the tragic conclusion the presence of birds are once again very apparent. Prior to Edna's suicide, she notices that, "a bird with a broken wing was beating the air above, fluttering, circling disabled down, down to the water" (116). The wounded bird being injured and weak plunges into the water symbolizing Edna's failure to escape the boundaries and limitations in her role as a woman. Edna soon follows the bird into the depths of the ocean, ending her life and freeing herself of the madness that was surrounding her.

Chopin, Kate. "The Awakening." The Awakening and Other Stories. Hertfordshire:

"The pigeon house pleased her. It at once assumed the intimate character of a home, while she herself invested it with a charm, which it reflected like a warm glow. There was with her a feeling of having descended in the social scale, with a corresponding sense of having risen in the spiritual. Every step which she took toward relieving herself from the obligations added to her strength and expansion as an individual. She began to look with her own eyes; to see and to apprehend the deeper undercurrents of life. No longer was she content to 'feed upon opinion' when her own soul had invited her."

When Edna attempts to gain her freedom she moves into a little house around the corner from her larger more luxurious house in which she is trapped by her family and the standards that have been set upon her by the society around her. Not coincidentally she names the house the "pigeon house." Edna felt that,

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1192
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)