Pages 11-20
I believe that Robert and Edna have developed a liking for each other, and although Robert’s intentions are only to devote him to a woman each summer, their intimacy is growing. When he puts his head on her shoulder, she thinks nothing of it but carelessness. Edna must have collected from the conversation before that Roberts actions are not to be taken seriously. At this point in the book, I believe it is the beginning of the “awakening” for Edna, she even says that it is the “beginning of things, of a world especially, is necessarily vague, tangled, and chaotic and exceedingly disturbing”. She also relates the sea to her realizations about herself, “The voice of the sea is seductive; never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, and inviting the soul to wander for a spell in abysses of solitude; to lose itself in mazes of inward contemplation”.
When Adele and Edna are looking out into the ocean and Adele asks Edna what she is thinking about, Edna finally shares her actual feelings with Adele. She says that she feels that summer “as if I were walking through the green meadow again; idly, aimlessly, unthinking and unguided”. What is happening here is that she is relating her childhood memories to what she feels like now, this is also a part of her “awakening”, she is retracing thoughts and trying to bring back better times.
Cite for image:http://www.visualphotos.com/image/2x4500003/close_up_of_teenage_girl_walking_through_barley
