Birds In The Awakening

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Birds in The Awakening Birds have been symbols of many things during the years. They have been symbols of both the coming of spring; a flying bird can be a symbol of freedom, as well as they have been used as peace symbols. Birds have also been a religious symbol, found in e.g. the Bible e.g. in the story of Noah’s Arc where they send out a white dove to see if there was land anywhere. Through out history there has been a general belief that when a person dies, the soul leaves the body in the shape of a bird. The bird is a symbol of the soul being free from the body on earth. In relation to the general belief that the soul leaves the body in shape of a bird, it can be argued that a bird could be the passage between the physical and spiritual world. Birds play a significant role in the Awakening; they are used in various scenes, describing various emotions, situations and states of minds. The birds are often used to portray Edna’s state of mind, and it could even be said that they represent where she is in her life; namely that makes the birds such a powerful tool in this story. In the opening chapter of the novel, there is a parrot in a cage. The fact that it is in a cage, makes it represent the complete opposite of a flying bird, which means that instead of representing freedom, it represents being caught, and kept in a cage. The parrot is captured in the cage, just as Edna is captured in her marriage, and a symbol of how Victorian women were trapped and put down by the patriarchal society. The parrot is an image of how women were limited in their moves. The parrot is not able to spread it wings and fly, the only thing which it can use its wings for, is to hide and protect itself. The same goes for the women who were controlled by the Victorian ideals. Women were not kept in an iron cage like the parrot, but they were kept in a cage in the
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