In many novels, water represents freedom, independence, and escape; Kate Chopin's The Awakening is no different. Edna Pontellier had always accepted her life, never really enjoying it, but not hating it either. Suddenly, she begins to feel for the first time in her life, partly due to her experience in the ocean. Each time she is in the presence of water, the freedom it offers beckons her. In The Awakening, the sea is a symbol of freedom and release for Edna when she takes her first swim, leaves Grande Isle for Cheniere Caminada, and when she walks to the beach for the final time.
Edna's emotions begin to stir the first time she is able to swim. Following a particularly moving musical performance by Mademoiselle Reisz, the vacationers at Grande Isle decide to head down to the ocean for a swim. All summer Edna had attempted to learn to swim, without ever an once of success. Miraculously on this night, Edna dives into the water and for the first time, is able to bring her head above the surface. Chopin says that she "was like the little tottering, stumbling, clutching child, who of a sudden realizes it's powers, and walks for the first time alone, boldly and with over confidence- (Chopin 73). Until this night Edna had been living in a dream world, separated from her emotions. Once she embraces them she discovers that she can be safe in the sea, and is able to swim. Realizing her own ability and getting her first taste of independence, Edna "[wants] to swim far out, where no woman had swum before- (73). Unfortunately, she is not fully ready for the freedom that the ocean offers to her, because when she looks back toward the shore and sees how far she is from it, she becomes panicked and filled with a sense of dread, even though "she had not gone any great distance- that is, what would have been a great distance for an experienced swimmer- (74). The shore represents Edna's old life, and the rules of society that she has always been governed by.
