Preview

Edna's Last Swim Analysis

Satisfactory Essays
Open Document
Open Document
153 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Edna's Last Swim Analysis
"The voice of the sea is seductive, never ceasing. whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander in abysses of solitude.", Edna announces this just before her 'last-swim'. Throughout the novel the sea signified escape and empowerment from the real world responsibilities. Learning to swim gave Edna empowerment by allowing her to control her body and soul in a way she had not felt before. As the novel progresses the sea becomes a place of affair, a place were Edna can be with Robert and forget her husband, and children; this escape is brought upon by her husbands dislike of swimming. After realizing that there is no place or person for Edna to express her true desires and love she ultimately decides that the empowerment of the
Continue Reading
View Writing Issues

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    Lynne Cox's Swim Analysis
    • 104 Words
    • 1 Page

    Lynne Cox's Swim Analysis

    In 1987, Lynne Cox, an American long distance swimmer, braved the frigid waters of the Bering Strait to swim between the US and the Soviet Union in a bid to promote peace between the Cold War enemies.…

    • 104 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Summary Of Quotes From 'The Awakening'
    • 1508 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Summary Of Quotes From 'The Awakening'

    The naked man by the seashore watching the bird flying was Edna’s inner self trying to convey itself. Edna wished to feel free just like the man and she wanted to fly away just like the bird. These two metaphors represent Edna’s desire to live a new live, which is how she finds her sense of self in the end of the novella. In the third quote, Adele Ratignolle was the person who Mrs. Pontellier came to like and look up to. The reason for this was because Adele spoke what was on her mind and did as she pleased, she had no one to boss her around.…

    • 1508 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Analysis Of The Article 'Swimming For Her Life'
    • 165 Words
    • 1 Page

    Analysis Of The Article 'Swimming For Her Life'

    In the article, Swimming for her Life, A young Syrian girl named Yusra is forced to face many challenges. Her life is crumbling around her, because of the Syrian war. This started when the rebels said no to the president, and now the country is left in ruins. Some of the problems Yusra faces are being smuggled in and out of the countries, not being caught, and getting stuck in the ocean. Between turkey and Greece, the ship got stuck and Yusra and her sister had to push it all by themselves. Another problem they faced was being smuggled. She had to have a professional smuggler smuggle them between the borders and in the ocean. When Yusra got to Germany, she was accepted by a coach that saw her skill. Then, the Olympics were opening up ten spots…

    • 165 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Edna's First Awakening Analysis
    • 230 Words
    • 1 Page

    Edna's First Awakening Analysis

    Edna’s first awaking happens in response to her being around people of Cajun descent who openly communicate and touch. While spending time on the beach with a Cajun women Edna is touched, this touch is not in a sexual way, but is outside the norm and starts Edna’s journey towards what she will accept versus what is socially acceptable. Edna says that mother-women “created the embodiment of every womanly grace and charm” {Baym 567). Edna does not consider herself to be a motherly-women. Edna’s second awakening occurs when she pushes the bounds of her immortality by swimming out farther than she thought that she could, but still makes it back to shore. This leads her to try new thing even to the point of speaking back to her husband. To speak…

    • 230 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Awakening Study Guide
    • 1746 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Awakening Study Guide

    1. What does the parrot say? What does it mean? How might these comments foreshadow what will occur in the novel?…

    • 1746 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Water In Kate Chopin's The Awakening
    • 337 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Water In Kate Chopin's The Awakening

    In The Awakening by Kate Chopin, water serves as commentary on Edna Pontellier’s most pivotal moments in which she evolved as a person. The various instances of water throughout the novel symbolize Edna’s…

    • 337 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Who Is The Antagonist In The Swimmer
    • 538 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Who Is The Antagonist In The Swimmer

    Throughout the short story “The Swimmer”, the author makes it sound as if the main character Neddy Merrill is swimming home through pools. But, these pools are metaphors for different chapters of his life. In the beginning Neddy is portrayed as youthful and energetic, he is able to dive into the pool and he can lift himself out of the pool effortlessly. As the story goes on as Neddy goes through more pools we see that he’s getting older, he uses the ladder to get out of the pool and he is cold and wants to stop swimming and put on warm clothes.…

    • 538 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Dialectical journals for the awakening
    • 935 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Dialectical journals for the awakening

    Edna was beginning to realize that she needed to live out her own life, one separate from the life that she has always grow up around but due to the fact that she doesn’t know what to do with these feelings and desires, or has witnessed someone that is like minded to her she begins slowly give up on her current life and start pursuing her desires. And piece by piece Edna begins building her own individual instead of one that has been cast in iron by the society that puts all women in a specific role.…

    • 935 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Blueback Novel Essay
    • 702 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Blueback Novel Essay

    Through the novel, Winton has written that Abel is passionate bout the sea. Abel is a natural diver at Longboat Bay and loves being underwater ever since he could remember. Winton as used third person narrative point of view by how Abel’s feelings and thoughts about Longboat Bay and the sea being his home. It also shows how Abel feels when he is away from the sea and how he feels lost without it. In the novel Winton says “In his high school years, Abel Jackson felt like he was holding his breath like diving . . . From the moment he left Longboat Bay at the beginning of every semester, something inside him took a deep breath and held on . . . “ (pg.95) also it says “. . . he was a diver before he was born he . . . swam in the warm ocean inside her . . . so maybe it came naturally.” (pg.3) It is clear that Abel is a natural diver and how he feels lost when he is a way from the sea, He feels like a ‘fish out of water’. Through the way Winton communicates the idea that Abel is passionate about the sea, this helps the reader understand the character, Abel.…

    • 702 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The Whale Shark Annotated
    • 182 Words
    • 1 Page

    The Whale Shark Annotated

    The narrator immersed himself in the ocean to escape from his past; he is still dealing with the death of his son and guilt that he was one that killed his own flesh and blood. While in the ocean the narrator briefly describes his swimming technique, he states that he enjoys the feeling of swimming harder underneath the current. He pushes himself harder in the ocean to the point he grasp the concept that in just a matter of seconds a body can easily die as live. Swimming in the ocean with the narrator were jellyfishes and a whale shark. The significant about the whale shark, is it was once alive in the ocean swimming freely than suddenly captured and killed. I believe that the narrator saw as a representation of his son, because similar to…

    • 182 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Swimmer Analysis Paper
    • 831 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Swimmer Analysis Paper

    In the short story “The Swimmer”, the author John Cheever uses various symbols and many forms of imagery to describe the changes in life which Neddy, the main character of the story, is going through. Cheever implies in the story that aging is something that can not be avoided and one often denies its coming. Using Neddy’s journey through his neighbors pools, he shows that it is difficult to accept the changing results when one experiences life altering events. Not only does the author use pools to symbolize the changes in the life which Neddy is going though, he uses different seasons, the way people treat him, and also his current surroundings to describe this change.…

    • 831 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    The Awakening Symbols
    • 943 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The Awakening Symbols

    ▪ One of the last things Edna sees before she drowns herself, however, is a broken-winged bird attempting to fly, but falling instead into the sea. This most likely indicates her own failure to fully free herself.…

    • 943 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Symbolism In The Awakening
    • 861 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Symbolism In The Awakening

    In Chapter VI, as Edna begins to “awaken” to her position in her world, Chopin juxtaposes a comment about the “voice of the sea” with a paragraph describing the beginnings of a new world, “But the beginning of things, of a world especially, is necessarily vague, tangled, chaotic, and exceedingly disturbing. How few of us ever emerge from such beginning! How many souls perish in its tumult!” (25) Chopin didn’t accidentally set Edna’s awakening on the resort of Grand Isle and in the city of New Orleans where the sea is always close at hand. Even as Chopin alludes to the chaotic nature of the sea, she also draws attention to the sea as a source of life and new birth. Edna’s eventual mastery of swimming offers the point that she swims with “newly conquered power” toward “the unlimited in which to lose herself.” The sea has opened up a new expanse of exploration for Edna; an expanse in which ironically, Edna’s “loss” of herself really mars the “gaining” of herself. Throughout the novel, the sea is almost a character in itself; Chopin makes many references to its “voice”, which calls to, and even seduces Edna into her newly “awakened” life. “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.”…

    • 861 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Great Gatsby/the Awakening Essay
    • 954 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Great Gatsby/the Awakening Essay

    In the beginning of The Awakening, Chopin uses the motif of water at the Grand Isle beach to represent Edna’s first stages of her awakening. While taking a walk on the beach with the Pontelliers and the Ratignolle, she takes her first swim the ocean: “But that night she was like the little tottering, stumbling, clutching child, who of a sudden realizes its powers, and walks for the first time alone, boldly and with over-confidence” (Chopin 73). The Grand Isle is the first setting that Edna develops her questioning the life she is living. The motif of the water that Edna is swimming in develops her realization and want for independence. The specific diction leads the reader to believe that the ocean swim essentially over-powers the protagonist, Edna, with a new feeling of freedom. The diction suggesting so is when Edna realized the ocean’s “power” and the impact it has that she even feels independent when Chopin uses the phrase “first time alone.” Chopin continues Edna’s experience while also suggesting that she starts to feel independent: “As she swam she seemed to be reaching out for the unlimited in which to lose herself” (Chopin 74). Edna’s experiences of the water at the beach further develops the theme of freedom from her oppressed lifestyle that was common during the time period…

    • 954 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The Awakening Essay
    • 409 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The Awakening Essay

    The sea has many different interpretations for what it actually means but one meaning stands out as the overall meaning: rebirth. The sea means rebirth because of how she changed from one point of the book to the end of the book. Edna was an obedient, traditional wife and mother in the beginning of the book. Basically listening to everything her husband tell her to do. Then, Robert came along and pushed her to rebel against her current life by talking her into conquering her fear of the water. Since that night, she started to changed more and more into an independent woman. The sea can be also be interpreted as being freedom because the water can sometime be a place of peace. Meaning that Edna place of peace because that was the only place that her current life did not matter and where she could actually think and unleash her feeling that she often kept bundle inside of herself.…

    • 409 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More