The Awakening
The Awakening is a novel by Kate Chopin, first published in 1899. Set in New Orleans and on the Louisiana Gulf coast at the end of the 19th century, the plot centers on Edna Pontellier and her struggle between her increasingly unorthodox views on femininity and motherhood with the prevailing social attitudes of the turn-of-the-century American South. It is one of the earliest American novels that focuses on women's issues without condescension. It is also widely seen as a landmark work of early feminism.
The novel's blend of realistic narrative, incisive social commentary, and psychological complexity makes The Awakening a precursor of American modernist literature; it prefigures the works of American novelists such as William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway and echoes the works of contemporaries such as Edith Wharton and Henry James. It can also be considered among the first Southern works in a tradition that would culminate with the modern works of Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor, Eudora Welty, Katherine Anne Porter, and Tennessee Williams.
The Awakening was particularly controversial upon publication in 1899. Although the novel never was technically banned, it was censored. Chopin's novel was considered immoral for its comparatively frank depictions of female sexual desire and for its depiction of a protagonist who chafed against social norms and established gender roles. The Dial called The Awakening a "poignant spiritual tragedy" with the caveat that the novel was "not altogether wholesome in its tendencies." Similarly, The Congregationalist called Chopin's novel "a brilliant piece of writing" but concludes "We cannot commend it." In the Pittsburgh Leader, Willa Cather set The Awakening alongside Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert's equally notorious and equally reviled novel of suburban ennui and unapologetic adultery—but Cather was no more impressed with the heroine than were most of her contemporaries. Cather "hope[d] that Miss Chopin will devote that flexible, iridescent style of hers to a better cause."
Excerpted from The Awakening on Wikipedia.
The Awakening
| Author | Kate Chopin |
| Country | United States |
| Genre | Psychological fiction, Romance |
| Copyright | Public domain worldwide. |
| Book cover | Photo: Alexander Krivitskiy|unsplash |
| Ebooks | Project Gutenberg |
| Scans | Google-digitized |
| Audio | Librivox | Internet Archive Reader: Elizabeth Klett 01-05 06-10 11-15 16-20 21-25 26-30 31-35 36-39 |
| Read online | The Awakening |