The Awakening In the begging of chapter 10 a crowd makes their way down to the beach. All summer Edna has been unable to learn to swim. She suddenly decides to swim “where no woman has swum before.” As she enters the water, everyone praises her success. As she swims out further and realizes how far she has gone, she gets the feeling of death, and struggles back to shore. I think that learning to swim …showed first 75 words of 361 total…

…showed last 75 words of 361 total…layers of restricting clothing and stands naked on the beach. A bird with a broken wing crashes into the ocean. The bird symbolizes Edna's failure to achieve the goal that she has been trying to attain throughout the novel. Throughout the novel, Edna seeks independence. Her series of awakenings are mostly about achieving this goal. In the end, Edna’s freedom is achieved by death. Death is the only freedom that social conventions allow her.