At 26, he is only two years younger than Edna, while Léonce is 12 years older. While Léonce is familiar, Robert is fun and lively. Such nonverbal communication is a tremendous bond between a couple, and is often an indication of their unity.Īt the same time, Edna clearly has a bond with her platonic friend Robert that excludes her husband - this bond is represented by the adventure that she and Robert share during their swim, the joy of which they cannot communicate to Léonce.

Léonce, noting his wife's sunburn, expresses not concern for her potential discomfort but instead regards her 'as one looks at a valuable piece of personal property that has suffered some damage.' Yet Léonce and Edna have built between them a working familiarity that allows them to communicate wordlessly, such as when he hands her rings to her at her simple wordless gesture of holding out her hand.

The nature of Edna's relationships with Léonce and Robert is established in this first brief chapter, as well.

The description of the mockingbird also sets the tone for Madame Reisz's independent behavior within the confines of the insistently polite upper-class Creole society she too whistles her own tune 'with maddening persistence.' Mockingbirds have a reputation as obnoxious birds, and Madame Reisz shares a similar reputation as a rude, ill-tempered woman. Later chapters show how Madame Reisz's piano playing speaks to Edna's soul as if that music were the language her soul had been waiting in silence for. The parrot knows not only French, Spanish, and English phrases but also 'a language which nobody understood, unless it was the mockingbird that hung on the other side of the door.' The mockingbird represents Madame Reisz (a character who is introduced in Chapter 9), the only character who is successful at making Edna tell the truth about her love for Robert that develops throughout the novel. He soon departs for billiards and socializing at the nearby Klein's hotel.Īlready Chopin establishes some key symbolism in the novel: Edna is the green-and-yellow parrot telling everyone to 'go away, for God's sake.' Unable to leave the cage, the parrot must ask everyone to leave when it would prefer to simply fly away. Léonce's wife, Edna Pontellier, and her friend Robert Lebrun return from their swim in the Gulf of Mexico and join Léonce. He is annoyed by a caged parrot loudly repeating its stock phrases, and so leaves the main building of the pension (boardinghouse) for his own cottage. The novel opens with Léonce Pontellier, a vacationer on Grand Isle (which is just off the coast of New Orleans), reading a newspaper and surveying his surroundings.

Grand isle the awakening