Edna’s death by drowning is first foreshadowed in Chapter 6, after Robert asks Edna if she’d like to go bathing:
[Edna's] glance wandered from his face away toward the Gulf, whose sonorous murmur reached her like a loving but imperative entreat.
The novel characterizes the Gulf as enticing—almost hypnotizing—to Edna. This characterization of the sea and Gulf as mesmerizing continues throughout the novel. Later on, the narrator describes the sea as having a “voice” that is “seductive [...] whispering, clamoring, murmuring.” This instance of personification underscores how profoundly Edna is drawn to the sea, and it foreshadows the moment Edna goes for a swim in the Gulf, restless and sad after Robert’s departure.
The novel foreshadows Edna’s fate again in Chapter 10, when Edna finally learns to swim. For a moment, she's afraid:
A quick vision of death smote [Edna’s] soul, and for a second of time appalled and enfeebled her senses. But by an effort she rallied her staggering faculties and managed to regain the land.
Swimming gives Edna a sense of independence and self-reliance and is crucial to her process of self-understanding. Moreover, the sea represents Edna’s inner soul and experience of solitude. But the "vision of death" that punctuates this scene suggests that Edna's process of coming into her own is also overwhelming, frightening, and even dangerous. Tragically, Edna dies by drowning in the very same waters she learned to swim. The Awakening’s ending suggests that freedom has a cost: one can become lost within the endless expanse of the inner self.
Edna’s death by drowning is first foreshadowed in Chapter 6, after Robert asks Edna if she’d like to go bathing:
[Edna's] glance wandered from his face away toward the Gulf, whose sonorous murmur reached her like a loving but imperative entreat.
The novel characterizes the Gulf as enticing—almost hypnotizing—to Edna. This characterization of the sea and Gulf as mesmerizing continues throughout the novel. Later on, the narrator describes the sea as having a “voice” that is “seductive [...] whispering, clamoring, murmuring.” This instance of personification underscores how profoundly Edna is drawn to the sea, and it foreshadows the moment Edna goes for a swim in the Gulf, restless and sad after Robert’s departure.
The novel foreshadows Edna’s fate again in Chapter 10, when Edna finally learns to swim. For a moment, she's afraid:
A quick vision of death smote [Edna’s] soul, and for a second of time appalled and enfeebled her senses. But by an effort she rallied her staggering faculties and managed to regain the land.
Swimming gives Edna a sense of independence and self-reliance and is crucial to her process of self-understanding. Moreover, the sea represents Edna’s inner soul and experience of solitude. But the "vision of death" that punctuates this scene suggests that Edna's process of coming into her own is also overwhelming, frightening, and even dangerous. Tragically, Edna dies by drowning in the very same waters she learned to swim. The Awakening’s ending suggests that freedom has a cost: one can become lost within the endless expanse of the inner self.
Moments before Edna’s tragic death occurs, the novel foreshadows her tragic fate:
A bird with a broken wing was beating the air above, reeling, fluttering, circling disabled down, down to the water.
Birds, having the ability to fly, symbolize freedom, imagination, romance, and desire. And because Edna’s transforms throughout the novel to be freer, more imaginative, and more in touch with her desires, the novel symbolically links her to birds. The image of the injured bird falling to its certain death by drowning thus represents how Edna's newfound freedom eventually seems to overwhelm and suffocate her, leaving her adrift. And, more literally, it foreshadows Edna's own death by drowning just after this passage.
