Use of Metaphors in The Awakening

This paper will discuss author Kate Chopin's use of description in her novel, The Awakening. The paper will place particular emphasis upon the metaphorical relationship which Chopin has created between the novel's protagonist, Edna Pontellier, and nature.

We first meet Mrs. Pontellier as she approaches her summer cottage from the beach at Grand Isle. She is revealed to the reader through the eyes of Mr. Pontellier, her husband, as he watches her white sunshade "advancing at a snail's pace from the beach" (6). Edna Pontellier is thus identified with nature from the very moment she is introduced into the book. Kate Chopin goes on to describe the natural beauty of the setting: Edna and Robert Lebrun walk "between the gaunt trunks of the water oaks and across the stretch of yellow camomile. The gulf looked far away, melting hazily into the blue of the horizon" (Chopin 7).

The association of Edna Pontellier with nature stands in sharp contrast to the relationship which her husband, Mr. Pontellier, shares with the natural world. Indeed, the book opens with Mr. Pontellier being so annoyed by the chatter of a parrot that he is forced to leave the main house for his cottage, where he can read his newspaper in peace (5). This is a man who is disturbed by the country life: he is dependent on his day-old newspaper to inform him of the world outside Grand Isle, and for recreation he favors a game of billiards at Klein's hotel where he can socialize with other New Orleans busine

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ns about the dinner and leaves for his club in a huff. once he has gone, Edna's "face was flushed and her eyes flamed with some inward fire that lighted them" (87). Thus, she is again described in terms of nature and the elements. In the next paragraph, Kate Chopin makes the identification between Edna and nature more complete: She went and stood at an open window and looked out upon the deep tangle of the garden below. All the mystery and witchery of the night seemed to have gathered there amid the perfumes and the dusky and tortuous outlines of flowers and foliage. She was seeking herself and finding herself in just such sweet, half darkness and the sky above the stars (87). The book is filled with references to the metaphorical association between Edna Pontellier and nature. She wins the money with which to buy her freedom by gambling at the racetrack; it is her expert knowledge of race horses, gained as a girl in the Kentucky bluegrass country that she loved, which enables her to become independent. Here, the nature identification is fully expressed: "The race horse was a friend and intimate associate of her childhood. The atmosphere of the stables and the breath of the bluegrass paddock revived in her memory and l

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