he rest of society if a man stepped outside the acceptable modes of behavior.
Chopin's novel is clear in its message. Edna Pontellier is a woman who is trapped by circumstances she can do nothing about. She deceives herself into hoping that she can find freedom and happiness with another man. But she discovers that he is as much controlled by the rules of their social order as her husband is. The heart of Edna Pontellier's dilemma is the clash between her perception of her life as a trap and the men's comfortable assumption that the trap is a nice place to be.
The Awakening opens with a parrot in a cage speaking French and English and a mocking-bird singing maddeningly. Leonce Pontellier, disgusted with their noise and having "the privilege of quitting their society when they ceased to be entertaining", gets up and leaves their vicinity (494). At the novel's end, as she drowns, the last real sound Edna hears is "the barking of an old dog that was chained to the sycamore tree" (582). The sound is transformed as she dies into a sound from her past; the sound of the cavalry officer's spurs which "clanged as he walked across the porch" (582). The dog and the parrot bear heavy symbolic weight in the novel. The parrot has adapted so thoroughly to its captivity that it speaks at least four languages. It is clearly a very clever parrot but its uses are limited and it has undoubtedly reached the extent of its abilities. But Leonce has the "privilege" of merely walking away from the captive creatures that might entertain him from time to time. The parrot may be taken as a symbol of Edna's condition but, in fact, it more clearly operates as a symbol of Leonce whose privilege of leaving is an illusion. He and Robert and Mme. Ratignolle and all the others who flourish in their captivity are the one whose symbol is the parrot. Edna can be included in their number at the opening of the novel. But at the end she alone is symboliz...