[Posted on behalf of a student]
The sea plays a crucial role in Katie Chopin’s The Awakening even though it is not a character in the story. In the novel, the sea symbolizes freedom and escape for the main character, Edna Pontellier. Edna feels confined by the roles that she must take on as a woman in the 1800s, leaving her wanting an escape from society and its constraints.
At the beginning of the book, Chopin writes, “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 inward contemplation. The voice of the sea speaks to the soul. The touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace.” (Chopin 20) This gives the reader an introduction to the sea and the invitation that it gives the soul to escape. It is a few chapters later — in Chapter 10 — that Edna learns to swim. In learning to swim, Edna learns that she is not constrained by society while swimming in the sea. The sea gives her the freedom to be an independent woman who is not constrained by the roles she must play or by being “owned” by her husband. It is after discovering this freedom that Edna begins to “awake” and tries to escape the roles that she has been given. She then spends the rest of the book trying to escape the roles she has been given by becoming a painter, moving into a little house around the corner, sending her children away, and trying to make advancements with Robert. All of these fail as a way to escape the roles that society has given her as a woman in this time period.
In the end, the sea comes back as a way for Edna to escape. In the last chapter, Chopin writes, “The voice of the sea is seductive, never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander in abysses of solitude….The foamy wavelets curled up to her white feet, and coiled like serpents about her ankles. She walked out. The water was chill, but she walked on. The water was deep, but she lifted her white body and reached out with a long, sweeping stroke. The touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace.” (Chopin 176) The beginning and end of this quote repeat almost word for word the introduction we are given to the sea as a way to escape, thus repeating the idea that the sea provides an escape and freedom for Edna. This time, though, the sea is literally giving Edna an escape from society’s gender roles and ultimately an escape from the world. The sea lets her be free from the world, and she no longer feels the constraints that the world has put on her and other women like her.