spills over into other facets of her life. Thus Robert becomes the means through which her internal struggle is born and realized.Unlike James, Chopin portrays her theme mostly through the use of symbolism. Although her choice of words is sometimes startlingly insightful, it is through the wealth of representative symbols and images in The Awakening that Chopin examines and reveals her theme.The first such symbols we encounter are Edna's wedding rings. They are at this point symbolic not only of her conventionality, but also of her ignorance that she is trapped by convention. In the first chapter Edna returns from a swim with Robert, her would-be lover, to the cottage where her husband Leonce sits reading the Saturday newspaper. She had given her rings to him to hold for her. Upon returning, "She silently reached out to him, and he, understanding, took the rings from his vest pocket and dropped them into her open palm. She slipped them upon her fingers..." (Chopin 45). In other words, she blindly accepts a return to the conventions of marriage and patriarchy which bind her, perhaps even welcoming their long-known comfort. Her instincts have not yet surfaced.Later that night Leonce returns from a night at the local club. Upset that his wife seems to evince little interest in his conversation, he upbraids her for the lack of attention she displays towards him and the children. His conventional male sense of superiority cannot stand to be slighted, and so he seeks to reestablish his authority by scolding her.Edna realizes this on an instinctive level and, upset, she begins to cry. Her instincts have not been awakened, precisely, but she experiences a deep dissatisfaction with the conventions that motivate Leonce's rebuke. It is a vague dissatisfaction, one she does not as yet understand sufficiently to articulate, even to herself. Chopin explains that "An indescribable oppression, which seemed to generate in some unfamiliar part of her con...
