What are the main images and symbols in Chopin's The Awakening?

There are so many it is difficult to choose!  One example that you can trace through the novel is birds.  The novel starts with the symbol of a caged bird, and references birds in several other chapters as well.  The caged bird is a clear symbol for Edna as she feels caged in her roles of wife and mother and in the expectations that the Creole society has imposed on her.  Later in the novel Reisz questions whether Edna has strong enough wings to fly above the social conventions of the time to be truly free of the rules and norms of the day.  In the end, Edna sees a bird with a broken wing, just as she is not strong enough (or willing enough) to struggle on this society.  She lets herself drown in the ocean much the bird has the taste of freedom of flying, but is too weak to go for long. 

What are the main images and symbols in Chopin's The Awakening?

One of the major images and symbols in the novel The Awakening is at the very end when Edna drowns herself.  As she goes out into the water, "the foamy wavelets curled up to her white feet, and coiled like serpents about her ankles."  The irony of the scene is that Edna has learned how to swim, so here she is certainly exhibiting an act of agency by swimming far out into the water that used to scare her.  Now, she is not scared and as she swims she recalls all the troubles and misunderstandings of her life.  Her drowning symbolically represents her freeing herself from what she felt was a life of restriction.  Here in the water, she experiences that which her life did not allow.

What are some symbols in The Awakening?

In The Awakening, the sea symbolizes liberation. The expansiveness of the ocean becomes an apt representation of Edna's own awakening. She learns to swim in the waters at Grand Isle and, through this, experiences a greater sense of self. The sea also takes on a baptismal quality since Edna is literally becoming a new person over the course of the story, going from a repressed society wife to a passionate artist. The sea could also be said to represent Edna herself, as it is often characterized as feminine by sailors, and the unpredictability of storms and waves could be interpreted to reflect Edna's inner turmoil. Ironically, while the sea symbolizes Edna's freedom and rebirth, it is also the place where she commits suicide, a reflection of how her awakening also leads to her destruction once she is unable to deal with the loneliness nonconformity brings in its wake.

Food symbolizes Edna's emotionally ravenous and sensual nature. After years of a stifling marriage in which it is demanded that she not bother with her own desires, Edna is hungry for all sorts of experience: sexual, emotional, and artistic. Her unashamed enjoyment of food, as opposed to the ladylike reserve she is supposed to display while eating, reflects this inner hunger and how Edna is no longer content to pretend it is not there.