A green and yellow parrot, which hung in a cage outside the door, kept repeating over and over: “Allez vous-en! Allez vous-en! Sapristi! That’s all right!”
He could speak a little Spanish, and also a language which nobody understood, unless it was the mockingbird that hung on the other side of the door, whistling his fluty notes out upon the breeze with maddening persistence. (pg. 2)
The opening paragraph of the first chapter could be interpreted as the conflict between Edna Pontellier’s subservience to her societal role as a wife and mother and her own personhood. The green and yellow parrot, watching the world through its cage, being the part of Edna that has conformed to her role in society while the mockingbird, “whistling […] with maddening persistence,” is her personhood; as Edna’s “awakening” gradually progresses, the door can no longer separate the mockingbird from the parrot, or the world outside.
Edna’s awakening began in Grand Isle where she spent most of her time with Adèle Ratignolle and Robert Lebrun; it was Adèle’s openness that ignited Edna’s awakening and her love for Robert that accelerated it. As an act of independence, Edna began to paint while vacationing at Grand Isle and continued upon returning home to New Orleans.
Her awakening left no room for her past and, upon returning home, she continued to shed herself of her subservience. She began to ignore her social responsibilities and developed a unique friendship with Mademoiselle Reisz; she also temporarily replaced the void that Robert left with Alcée Arobin. Edna separated herself completely from her subservience when she moved from the house she shared with her husband and children to a house of her own.
It was Robert’s resistance toward Edna’s impractical proposal that led her back to Grand Isle where she gave herself to the sea, knowing that if Robert did not understand her then no one would.
All along the white beach, up and down, there was no living thing in sight. A bird with a broken wing was beating the air above, reeling, fluttering, circling disabled down, down to the water. (pg. 111)