Free Awakening Essays: The Pigeon House :: Chopin Awakening Essays

The Pigeon House in The Awakening   In a little four-room shack almost the corner. It looks so cozy, so inviting and restful.(79) With this description Chopin introduces the reader to Ednas new residence, which is affectionately known as the pigeon house. The pigeon house appends Edna with the comfort and security that her old house lacked. The tranquillity that the pigeon house grants to Edna allows her to experience a freedom that she has never felt before. The eldest taste of this newfound freedom is the satisfaction that Edna feels in being able to provide for herself with her own money. The fact that she no longer has to rely on her husbands money breaks the last tie that she had with him I know I shall want it, like the feeling of freedom and independence.(80) In her mind now, her marriage is dead, and Mr. Pontellier has no control over her. Financial freedom is not the only thing the pigeon house gives to Edna it also allows her both physical and spiritual fre edom. When Edna kisses Arobin in her husbands house, she feels reproach looking at her from the external things around her which he had provided for her external existence.(84) Yet, her first night at the pigeon house she spends with Arobin, and this time feels no reproach or regret. As for the spiritual ramifications provided by her new home, Chopin writes, There was a feeling of come down in the social scale, with the corresponding sense of having risen in the spiritual.., she began to look with her own eyes... no longer was she content to feed upon opinion.(94) The pigeon house provides a delegacy for Edna to escape from the society that she hates. She has the freedom to make the decisions in her life now and she decides that she is going to live life by her own rules, not the rules that society has rigid out for her. When she is within her home, she is free from the pressures of being the mother women which society forces her to be. The pigeon house nourishes this newfound fr eedom, allowing it to grow and gain strength. Without the environment provided by the pigeon house, it is doubtful as to whether Edna would brace ever awakened from the stupefied state that society was forcing her to live in.