What is the metaphor for "mother women" in the awakening?"

Mother-woman" is not so much a metaphor as it is a title
and a statement of the role of women in Creole society.  In Creole society at the turn
of the century it was considered the ideal description of a woman.  She is equally and
indivisibly a mother to her children and a woman of her home and marriage.  There is no
separation of her roles, they are intertwined and this feels especially oppressive to
Edna, while Adele is completely comfortable with it.  Edna doesn't hate her children,
but she wants to have her own life outside her home.  She wants to enjoy the arts and
learn to paint.  She wants to learn to swim.  All of these things have nothing to do
with her children or her husband and home -- they are only for her.  Another example
that shows the difference is with music -- Adele enjoys fun songs that she can sing to
entertain her family.  Edna enjoys the classical music played by
Reisz.

Adele serves as a foil character to Edna; she is the
ideal mother-woman.  Edna eventually defies every standard of that ideal, and realizes
in the end that she can't truly live her life they way she wants, so she lets herself
drown to escape it all.