...Finally, the author utilizes bird imagery to encapsulate Edna’s ultimate act of rebellion in which she fails to overcome the powerful temptations of sensuality and escape the confines of the infinite cycle of male dependency to which she is suddenly awakened. Chopin’s choice wording in illustrating the image of “the white beach, up and down, there was no living thing in sight. A bird with a broken wing was beating the air above, reeling, fluttering, circling disabled down, down to the water,”(176) illustrates a sort of wavering movement in the mind of the reader which sheds light on Edna’s mental instability. The fact that the author portrays this vivid image in the moments preceding Edna’s suicide points to the foreshadowing qualities of the passage, as well as this being the culmination of her failure to transcend the underlying forces of limitation – the biology in which she is linked to her children and the dependency and sensuality by which she is ceaselessly constrained to the male gender. The ironic nature of the statement that “there was no living thing in sight”, directly contrasted by the presence of a “bird with a broken wing,” provide further aid in the foreshadowing of Edna’s downfall due to the implication that this bird has already ceased living in the eyes of the author....
Words: 438 - Pages: 2
...position as a social truth. However, I would argues that, in The Awakening written by Kate Chopin, Edna sets an impressive example that presents us with a figure who takes a weary and tough journey in seeking liberation and authentic identity in a complex society, along with exploring self. The courageous soul seems to be the essential beacon guiding her through this tough tunnel, whereas, she finally understands that being herself in an authentic society will be the first step in truly achieving liberation. Quite a few people claim that Edna already has an authentic life, since she is well protected by her husband, who looks at his wife “as one looks at a valuable piece of personal property which has suffered some damage” (The Awakening, Page 4) My view, however, is that this has the same meaning as Edna being a caged bird who is not fully understood by others. The author writes: “Her eyebrows were a shade darker than her hair. They were thick and almost horizontal, emphasizing the depth of her eyes. She was rather handsome than beautiful.” (The Awakening, Page 5) We learn that Edna’s powerful and serious impression foreshadows her internal strength and masculinity. According to Chopin’s description, Edna defines herself properly: “In short, Mrs. Pontellier was not a mother-woman. The mother-woman seemed to prevail that summer at Grand Isle […] fluttering about with extended, protecting wings.” (The Awakening, Page 9) Firstly, the mother-woman depicts a typical-identity...
Words: 1300 - Pages: 6
...Akil Hodge 9-17-10 2nd / U.S. Lit. Analysis: Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God The Great Awakening was a religious movement that shocked the world and brought unbelieving people into the life of a Christian. Jonathan Edwards was a powerful, influential figure in this movement and was known for his visual sermons. His method of preaching was using fear to frighten people to convert. One of his most powerful sermons, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”, used many rhetorical strategies to persuade his unsaved audience to become saved to avoid the torment of hell. One productive approach that was substantial in scaring the unsaved people in the audience is through the use of imagery. Imagery is the usage of words to make an image in the mind of the listener(s); with which Edwards uses adequately to defend his reason. In his case, he utilizes this technique to penetrate the hearts and minds to everyone present. This strategy terrifies his listeners into following his directions and method of redemption. “There are black clouds of God’s wrath now hanging directly over your heads” is an excellent example of imagery because it displays an image of hater from God. Metaphors are applied often in this distinctive speech about God and his anger. This figure of speech spans over the whole account through all paragraphs and is a very unique way of influence. I feel that “The bow of God’s wrath is dent” presents the meaning of the word metaphor, which is the using of words...
Words: 529 - Pages: 3
...The interactive oral was based on the novella, The Awakening, by Kate Chopin. The interactive oral caused me to understand other possible interpretations and perspectives of the novella. We spent time debating whether the title, The Awakening, or,the title, A Solitary Soul, was more suitable for the novella . This is due to the fact that several of my classmates had varying opinions on Edna’s desire, solitude or independence. I then realized the alternative which the imagery and figurative language used by Chopin could be analyzed or interpreted. I believe that my arguments were clearly conveyed to the group. The most interesting point made by one of my classmates was that the title, The Awakening, has a more positive connotation, so would...
Words: 422 - Pages: 2
...Like the tide, the sensual pull of the ocean attracts Edna to freedom. The novella The Awakening is set around the ocean. Chopin sets her main character Edna, in New Orleans and the Grand Isle to constantly entice Edna with the ocean and the freedom that it represents. At the beginning of the book Edna’s connection to the ocean is weak due to her inability to swim. After Edna swims for the first time and continues to practice the ocean’s sensuality starts to pull her in. Chopin relates Edna to the ocean in a parallel way to help express Edna’s crave for freedom. The last chapter in The Awakening Edna takes her life in the ocean that has been enticing her throughout the novella through sensualism and sets herself free. The ocean is a symbol...
Words: 1150 - Pages: 5
...This problem had emerged in the first few years of the settlement period and quickly gained momentum in the seventeenth century. By the late 1600s all thirteen colonies had come under English control. Governing bodies therefore consisted either of proprietors (individuals granted ownership of a colony and full authority to establish a government and distribute land) hired by wealthy investors, or councils, controlled by the monarchy (king or queen) and the aristocracy (elite social class) in England. 2. What was the First ( Great Awakening? Why was it significant ? How did it differ for people of different social and legal standing ? First Great Awakening was a religious movement among American colonial Protestants in the 1730s and 1740s. colonies. The Great Awakening may also be interpreted as the last major expression of the religious ideals on which the New England colonies were founded. It was significant because it showed a series of emotional religious revivals that was spread. It was new and different for people because that was not what they knew. Which in part was hard for them to adapt to quickly. 3. To whom was Alexander Hamilton a “the right hand man” Who sings “ The Farmer Refuted?” He was the right hand man to George Washington. The Farmers Refuted...
Words: 862 - Pages: 4
...is set in the time of the Great Awakening. Although this time period was after the Puritans, it sets the stage for the abundance of Edwards’ notions. Edwards’ speech, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”, speaks to the audience because of the harshness and the ability to create trepidation in people. He strategically lowers the audience’s self-love and makes it feel guilty until eventually when hearing the horrors of hell, you endure fear. The speech begins by making you terror hell and then gives you the loophole out of it. Although the message is not distinctly stated, Edwards’ vigor in speech blows the audience into believing every single word. Given the setting and circumstances of his time, Edwards' speech, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God", is an example of an effective argument due to his allusions to the past and polished use of visual imagery to engender fear in his audience. Edwards’ speech uses visual imagery, therefore leaving a mark and creating guilt in the audiences’ conscious. After creating multiple emotions like: guilt, fear, self-realization, he gives them a mode to be saved from it all. Although each of these images were diminutive and concise, when allied with the allusions they create the trepidation Edwards worked...
Words: 1046 - Pages: 5
...Imagery is very important in poetry. It is used to give the reader a visual or sense of what the author is talking about. Imagery triggers something in the brain that then gives us the ability to correlate a word with a sound, smell, feelings or even sight. Without any type of imagery, it would make it very difficult to relate with the author. Color imagery is used to trigger sight and make us visualize colors and associate it with the words either preceding or proceeding. In the two poems, “Nothing Gold Can Stay” by Robert Frost and “Spring and All” by William Carlos Williams, color imagery plays a big role in describing the scene. “Nothing Gold Can Stay” by Robert Browning is a poem about nature and how everything is so beautiful at first, but it then becomes subsides and isn’t as wonderful. “Nature’s first green is gold”, this could refer to the sunrise in the morning (499). This reminds me of all the gorgeous hues of a sunrise and how the sky and everything the sun hits seems golden. It could also be referring to seasonal changes. When spring is around, all the flowers and sunlight look amazing, but when the flowers start turning into leaves and falling off, it is a little upsetting to look at. “So dawn goes down to day”, this gives me the sense that Frost is talking about the early mornings (499). Watching dawn turn into day is disappointing, especially when you get to see all the natural colors coming from dawn and then it just turns into another plain day. The last line...
Words: 637 - Pages: 3
...viciously brutal, or she just does not fit society’s image of the perfect woman. Examples of the negative portrayal can be seen in literature such as Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, in which Edna is a weak and conforming wife having an affair with another man; William Shakespeare’s Macbeth, in which Lady Macbeth is an evil, conniving woman who degrades her husband by questioning his strength and masculinity; and Ernest Gaines’ A Lesson Before Dying, in which Vivian Baptiste cannot seem to simultaneously satisfy her family, her ex-husband, her boyfriend, Tante Lou, or Tante Lou’s friends while staying true to her religion, even though Grant has none at all. Through imagery, tone, and figurative...
Words: 581 - Pages: 3
...Throughout the novel, The Awakening, Edna Pontelier’s struggles with the discovery of her personal identity due to society’s social conduct which she had previously been blindly following. After undergoing an “awakening” to such confinements, it is highly suggested at the end of the novel that Edna committed suicide. Edna’s suicide is surrounded by a sense of ambiguity in regards to the motives influencing it, thus making it one of the more fascinating aspects of the novel. The quote is significant because it allows the reader to draw their own conclusions and interpretations, as Chopin does not outwardly express any particular point of view regarding Edna’s suicide. Therefore, the connotation of and motivation for her death is called into...
Words: 745 - Pages: 3
...Thoughts and emotions are often expressed through poetry. Gary Soto wrote “Oranges” in 1985, which was apart of his poetry collection Black Hair. In “Oranges”, Gary Soto uses symbolism and imagery to convey a young boy’s emotions on a first date. Gary Anthony Soto was born on April 12, 1952 in Fresno, California. Soto’s family were Mexican-American, therefor it was hard to find jobs besides labor. Soto’s father worked in the Sunmaid Raisin Company.When Soto was five, his father was killed in a tragic industrial accident while at work. His death had traumatic effects on Soto. His mother was forced to raise three children on her own. Trying to live was already hard with her husband, and his death made it significantly more difficult. In Gary...
Words: 384 - Pages: 2
...Jonathan Edwards was a popular Protestant preacher during the Great Awakening, a time of religious revival and fervor during the 1730s and 1740s. In his sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” Edwards uses the rhetorical devices of imagery and repetition to convey the pilgrims’ attitude toward God and their way of life. Edwards’ profuse usage of imagery throughout his sermon conveyed the pilgrims’ attitude towards God. Imagery is a rhetorical device which consists of descriptive language that appeals to a person’s five senses and their emotions. In his sermon, Edwards creates vivid images of an angry God and of God’s frightening wrath in order to induce fear among his audience to persuade them to reform their ways. Edwards states,...
Words: 658 - Pages: 3
...Heinrich-Heine-Universität Wintersemester 2010/11 Vertiefungsmodul Kurs: American Realism and Naturalism - Short Stories Seminarleiter: Georg Schiller Datum der Abgabe: 16.04.2011 Female Empowerment in Kate Chopin’s “The Awakening” Anjana Dhir BA Englisch KF, Geschichte NF 3. Semester Table of Contents 1. Introduction 3 2. The French – Creole society of Louisiana 4 2.1 Cultural background 4 2.2 French-Creole women 5 3. The Role of Women 6 4.1 Edna vs. Madame Ratignolle 7 3.1.1 “A Valuable Piece of Property” 7 3.1.2 Edna – The Unusual Woman 9 3.1.3 Adèle Ratignolle – The Archetype Woman 14 3.2 “Mother Woman” – The Patriarchal Ideology 16 4. Chopin’s Imagery 18 5. Conclusion - Edna’s Suicide 19 6. Bibliography 21 1. Introduction A certain ungovernable dread hung about her when in the water, unless there was a hand nearby that might reach out and reassure her. But that night she was like a little tottering, stumbling, clutching child, who of a sudden realizes its powers, and walks for the first time alone, boldly and with over confidence. […] A feeling of exultation overtook her, as if some power of significant import had been given her to control the working of her body and her soul. She grew daring and reckless, overestimating her strength. She...
Words: 7915 - Pages: 32
...this passage, “[Léonce] makes her get up on the pretext of one of their son’s imaginary illness…” (94). In doing so, Léonce is using her apparent lack of domesticity and care toward their children as reason to not only get back at her but to reinforce these her oppressive roles as mother and wife that she is uncomfortable with having. For, as Léonce believes, “If it was not a mother’s place to look after the children, then whose on earth was it?” (565). After this incident Edna feels overwhelmed with “an indescribable oppression” (566), prompting her journey of self-discovery. This journey later drives her to want to “Swim far out, where no woman had swum before” (583). This passage where Edna learns how to swim is significant in her awakening as it symbolizes Edna’s growing independence as well as a growing spiritual connection with the sea - which she returns to by the novel’s end. This is in agreement with Heilmann’s reading: Edna’s midnight swim is much more than a victory of physical coordination. It establishes her sense of self-ownership, physical, mental and spiritual, which in turn triggers two fundamental insights that determine her progression from disengaged wife to autonomous subject: in control of her body, she becomes aware of its potential for pleasure and learns to claim her right to self determination … (87) After her “encounter with death” (583), she returns to the shore feeling a sense of “achievement” (583) and “intoxicated with her newly conquered...
Words: 2048 - Pages: 9
...Jonathan Edwards’ Rhetorical Strategies In the sermon of Jonathan Edwards “Sinners in the Hand of an Angry God” he talks about God having no mercy for sinners. With that he uses many rhetorical strategies to get his point across to his audience and readers. As preacher of the Great Awakening it is his job to offer salvation, but he is very compelling and makes it sound as if sinners cannot be saved from the fires of hell. He uses fierce words towards those who sin and do not follow the teachings of God. Edwards uses rhetorical strategies such as imagery, anaphora, similes, and metaphors to grab the audience’s attention making his sermon persuasive. For instance, Jonathan Edwards starts his speech with imagery. He uses imagery various...
Words: 544 - Pages: 3
