The Awakening

The Awakening Just as a child comes out of its mother’s womb and takes its first breath in open air, Edna herself is taking her first breath from her awakening in Chopin’s novella The Awakening. Chopin describes Edna’s water experiences as if she was a new-born baby coming into the world and realizing that there is a totally different world from where she was held captive from everything. A baby is cradled …

…a new-born. “She felt like some new-born creature, opening its eyes in a familiar world that it had never known” 189). Due to her previous relationships with everyone and her new discovery of a different kind of freedom Edna very much acts childish and responds to things the way a baby or a child would. This explains that women tended to be treated like this and also why Chopin associates Edna’s awakening to a new-borne.