The Awakening
In Kate Chopin?s novel, ?The Awakening?, a confused middle age woman deals with a torn heart in the center . Edna, who is not really in love with her husband, begins to have mixed feelings and, as a result, begins to realize who she truly is. Edna feels that something is lacking in her life. The author uses the ocean to personify and symbolize what is missing in Edna?s life–the love of a man and freedom of the soul.
On several occasions Chopin uses the sea as a personification of Edna?s longing for the love of a man. Although Edna is married, she does not have the feelings for her husband, which coincide with being in love. In one example, Chopin describes the sea: ?The voice of the sea is seductive; never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander for a spell in abysses of solitude, to lose itself in mazes of contemplation? (13). The sea calls to Edna: ?The voice of the sea speaks to the soul. The touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace? (13). Chopin is describing the sea as though
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