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Love can be profound. A budding romance however, is often subtle; but it’s those subtleties- a gentle graze of skin, an accidental (but all the more wonderful) touch of finger tips, a lingering glance, that make love, building love up until it is almost blinding in its intensity- leaving two lovers lost in a euphoric vertigo with only each other to grasp to retain some semblance of balance and stability. In The Awakening, Kate Chopin expertly captures the genuine aspects new love by keeping the signs cached within the text instead of being blatant with their budding romance between Edna and Robert. As the reader, one must notice Chopin’s use of sensual diction, innuendo, and tattletale imagery to fully appreciate Edna’s and Robert’s love for each other.
Ejaculatory – no matter how pure of thought you consider yourself to be, this word is sure to drag your mind into the proverbial gutter (as it should). This is just one example of Chopin’s wily use of sensual diction. The word, even in context, makes one think of sex and creates sexual undertones to the passage. As Chopin describes Edna as she sketches ( “… She sometimes dabbled in an unprofessional way. She liked dabbling. She felt in it satisfaction of a kind which no other employment afforded her.”) She uses words like dabbling which makes one think of seduction. The fact that Edna feels satisfaction also brings the reader back to the thoughts of sex- purposefully done to create a sense of sexual tension in the passage – something that can only be share between two being with an initial attraction.
Looking back on the previously stated passage, at first glance it would seem Chopin was simply discussing Edna’s love of sketching yet the passionate tone of the statement seems out of place on an arguably frivolous past-time – causing you, the reader to delve deeper. You come to the conclusion that Edna’s love of “sketching” is really a metaphor for her love of Robert. “Dabble” is often used in that passage. Dabble...