Explain the Kentucky incident from chapter 7 of The Awakening.

In chapter 7, Edna and her friend Adele walk to the beach by themselves, and Adele asks Edna, "Of whom--of what are you thinking?" With some forced recall, Edna mentions a memory of walking through a field as a child in Kentucky. During her reflection on the Kentucky memory, Edna focuses specifically on the seemingly limitless bounds of both the Ocean and the field of grass.

"the sight of the water stretching so far away...a meadow that seemed as big as the ocean to the very little girl walking through the grass, which was higher than her waist."

then,

"...I felt as if I must walk on forever, without coming to the end if it."


Such limitlessness appeals to Edna, someone tightly bound by the societal expectations for women of the time, as she clearly desires the release that such limitlessness provides. In both the ocean and the grass, she was smaller than her surroundings, but they were a padding against the rest of the world, creating a sense of insignificance for herself but also her obligations that remained unseen while enveloped in the limitlessness. She seems to be telling Adele this because she gives her a similar feeling. Such an interpretation is likewise suggested by Edna herself at the end of the chapter when she tells Adele,

"sometimes I feel this summer as if I were walking through the green meadow again; idly, aimlessly, unthinking and unguided."

When Edna talks to her friend Adele, she recounts an incident from her childhood in Kentucky. She was walking through tall grass in a big field. She says,

I could see only the stretch of green before me, and I felt as if I must walk on forever, without coming to the end of it. I don't remember whether I was frightened or pleased. I must have been entertained . . . Likely as not it was Sunday . . . and I was running away from prayers, from the Presbyterian service, read in a spirit of gloom by my father that chills me yet to think of.

It seems quite telling that Edna was entertained, even if she was maybe a little frightened, by the endless freedom afforded her by nature, especially in comparison to the strictures and gloom she associates with her church services. Even as a child, Edna felt confined and depressed by the rigors of religious belief, rather than inspired or uplifted by them. She obviously did not like to be so confined then, and she preferred the big field to the church. We see similar qualities in adult Edna; she prefers the sea—even though she cannot swim and it frightens her somewhat—to social codes and confines. She chafes against the expectations of her husband and her society, preferring the freedom she feels in nature (especially once she learns to swim).