Langston Hughes And Kate Chopin Essay Research

Langston Hughes And Kate Chopin Essay, Research Paper

Langston Hughes and Kate Chopin use nature in several dimensions to demonstrate

the powerful struggles and burdens of human life. Throughout Kate Chopin^s The

Awakening and several of Langston Hughes^ poems, the sweeping imagery of the

beauty and power of nature demonstrates the struggles the characters confront,

and their eventual freedom from those struggles. Nature and freedom coexist, and

the characters eventually learn to find freedom from the confines of society,

oneself, and finally freedom within one^s soul. The use of nature for this

purpose brings the characters and speakers in Chopin^s and Hughes^ works to

life, and the reader feels the life and freedom of those characters. Nature, in

the works of Chopin and Hughes serves as a powerful symbol that represents the

struggle of the human soul towards freedom, the anguish of that struggle, and

the joy when that freedom is finally reached. In The Awakening, the protagonist

Edna Pontellier undergoes a metamorphosis. She lives in Creole society, a

society that restricts sexuality, especially for women of the time. Edna is

bound by the confines of a loveless marriage, unfulfilled, unhappy, and closed

in like a caged bird. During her summer at Grand Isle she is confronted with

herself in her truest nature, and finds herself swept away by passion and love

for someone she cannot have, Robert Lebrun. The imagery of the ocean at Grand

Isle and its attributes symbolize a force calling her to confront her internal

struggles, and find freedom. Chopin uses the imagery of the ocean to represent

the innate force within her soul that is calling to her. ^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 a maze of inward

contemplation.^ (p.14) Through nature and its power, Edna, begins to find

freedom in her ! soul and then returns to a life in the city where reside the

conflicts that surround her. Edna grew up on a Mississippi plantation, where

life was simple, happy, and peaceful. The images of nature, which serve as a

symbol for freedom of the soul, appear when she speaks of this existence. In the

novel, she remembers a simpler life when she was a child, engulfed in nature and

free: ^The hot wind beating in my face made me think ^ without any connection

that I can trace ^ of a summer day in Kentucky, of a meadow that seemed as big

as the ocean to the very little girl walking through the grass, which was higher

than her waist. She threw out her arms as if swimming when she walked, beating

the tall grass as one strikes out in the water.^ (p.17) Chopin^s reference to

swimming occurs many times in the novel, and through the ocean and her

experiences swimming, she not only confronts nature, but she challenges and

discovers her true self. The use of nature is especially significant as a memory

in her childhood because it marks a time in her life when she was happy and

free. This image of swimming returns to her when her soul is beginning to

reopen, at Grand Isle. When Edna finally learns to swim, she finds herself

frightened, alone, overwhelmed, and surrounded in a vast expanse of water. Her

experience swimming in the ocean for the first time parallels her discovery and

immersion in the true nature of her soul: ^As she swam she seemed to be reaching

out for the unlimited in which to lose herself . . . A quick vision of death

smote her soul, and for a second of time appalled and enfeebled her sense.^

(p.28) She is frightened by her own self-discovery ^ yet is enraptured by it. It

is this contradiction and this confrontation with nature that is brings about

Edna^s self-discovery and metamorphosis within the novel. It is more than love

for Robert that drives her to be free from the restrictions of this society.

Instead, it is her discovery of her own self that causes her to shun the

confines of society. Edna^s ^self-discovery^ awakens her, and she is able to

greet her own soul, a soul filled with passion and sexuality. However, ev! en

though she has found freedom within her own soul, she cannot be truly free in

this urban society. The symbol of the ocean appears again after Edna has been

awakened and discovered the power of her self. Edna, with an inner sense of

freedom, confronts the realization that the shackles of society that require her

submission are powerful forces which will try to bend and taint her new sense of

freedom. Again, we see the contradiction of the pure bliss of self^discovery and

awakening conflicting directly with the restrictions of society that do not

allow Edna to be free. This contradiction causes massive internal struggle for

Edna, and for her, there seems to be only one way to resolve this conflict. This

confrontation is brought to light at the end of the nove

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