The Awakening: And Other Stories

by Kate Chopin

Book Overview

Kate Chopin was one of the most individual and adventurous of nineteenth-century American writers, whose fiction explored new and often startling territory. When her most famous story, The Awakening, was first published in 1899, it stunned readers with its frank portrayal of the inner word of Edna Pontellier, and its daring criticisms of the limits of marriage and motherhood. The subtle beauty of her writing was contrasted with her unwomanly and sordid...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0199536945
• ISBN13: 9780199536948
• Release Date: October 2008
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Length: 480 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.0" x 7.6"

Customer Reviews

Edna Tries to Break Free

Critics during the 1899 gave Kate Chopin's "The Awakening" bad reviews. They were shock at the novel because of the issues that Chopin wrote about. Chopin was devasted; she died never writing again. "The Awakening" was revived by feminist critics that knew the work was facinating, also beautifully written and compose. Now, high schools and college across America read "The Awakening". The Awakening is about a woman named Edna Pontellier. Edna is unhappy in her life as a mother and wife. She starts to "awaken" from her conventional role of mother and wife to a woman that desires independence to become an individual. Edna does not love her husband nor she wants to be a mother to her two sons. Edna falls in love with Robert Leburn; Robert goes away to Mexico because he wants to stay away from Edna. He knows that they both have feelings for each other, and he leaves because Edna's reputation will be destroyed if they have a love affair. After Robert leaves, she purchases a quaint little house on the corner; she decides that she needs space away from her wifely and motherly duties. While Robert is gone, Edna has an affair with womanizer, Alcee Abouron.Robert comes back from Mexico; Edna is glad to see him and wants to rekindle the love that they discovered before he left. Edna is called by her friend, Adele, because she is having her baby. Edna discovers that she cannot awaken fully from society conventions and restraints that are placed on her. She realizes if there was a way that Robert and her could be together, eventually, he would stop loving her. She realizes during her time society will not let her be the woman that she wants and needs to be. "The Awakening" is about a woman that experiences and realizes that her life is complexed. As Edna struggles to find her identity, she has a wall against her, and it is called conventions.

Immense talent in a little package

Thank you to all my reading friends who suggested The Awakening as one of their favorite classic novels! I have been trying to branch out into new literary worlds, and the classics is one genre that I hadn't yet touched. Still a novice, but my journey has been so profitable thus far. The Awakening was one novel that is incredibly easy to read and holds such powerful prose in so few pages.A taboo subject back in its day, The Awakening tells the story of one woman's emotional journey from a stifled, miserable marriage to a spirited and lusty freedom. Young Edna Pontellier feels trapped in a loveless, although pampered, life with husband, Leonce. Stirrings of independence begin one summer while resorting in Grand Isle, an island off the coast of Louisiana. These new feelings have begun a profound change in Edna, liberating her beyond belief. Thus ensues an infidelity that dreams are made of, although at the expense of her marriage and motherhood.Hardly shocking in this day and age, The Awakening's subject of marital infidelity and physical lust for another is always a pageturner. The theme of the novel -- Edna's torment at the chains that bind her and the flutterings of an unbridled passion -- is brought to life with beautiful writing in simple, elegant words. I am surprised to find such a passionate and provocative story within its pages. Short but penetrating, The Awakening will move you.

Readers...Awaken

Though at one time I, too, would have rated "The Awakening" one of the worst reads of a lifetime--for its predictability in the context of a woman oppressed by Victorian society, and the most undeveloped, unsympathetic heroine for whom I was unable to muster the slightest emotional investment--a nagging, relentless undercurrent of something I couldn't quite identify festered long inside me regarding this novel until the story, and author, were at last redeemed upon my third reading, in a literature course that finally ended this internal struggle.Having much faith in Kate Chopin as a writer, I never felt 'the awakening' was about sex. This was too easy, even for a book set in Victorian Society. Further, it occurred to me that although women were limited beyond the domestic sphere in this era, suicide was not particular to the phenomenology of Victorian women (as it was, say, to Wall Street brokers at the onset of the Great Depression)."The Awakening," in title and content, is irony. Edna Pontellier's awakening is about who she perceives herself to be, and who she actually is. She dreams of passion and romance and embarks on a summer affair, yet she married Leonce simply to spite her parents, who don't like him. She moves out of the family home to live on her own--with the permission, and resources, of Leonce--hardly independent. She claims to crave intimacy, yet she fails horribly at every intimate relationship in her life: she is detached with her children, indifferent to her husband, leery of her artist friend, and can hardly stand another minute at the bedside of her warm, maternal friend, Mrs. Ratignolle, to assist her in childbirth. (Ratignolle was my favorite character of all, read after read, simply because she was so content with herself.)The Awakening? The surprise is on Edna, who is not the person she imagines herself to be. The irony? Edna Pontellier is never awakened to this, even at the bitter end. Feminists have adopted this book as their siren song...embarrassing at least! A feminist reading would, predictably, indict Victorian society as oppressive to women. Yawn...So that's new?!! Tell us something we don't know! I can tell you that concept wouldn't be enough to keep a book around for a hundred years.But the concept that has sustained this novel over a century's time is its irony. And it is superbly subtle. I believe Chopin deliberately set up Victorian society as her backdrop to cleverly mask this irony...'the awakening' is not something good (a daring sexual awakening in a dark era for women): it is something horrible that evolves and is apparent to everyone except the person experiencing it. This reading makes Edna's character worth hating! Chopin herself hated Edna Pontellier and called her a liar through her imagined conversation with her artist friend at the end of the novel.Chopin also cleverly tips the scales in Edna's favor in the first half of the novel, but a careful read reveals those scales weigh

Thought-provoking

In "The Awakening", a woman rejects the drudgery of her life and decides to live selfishly, for once. Kate Chopin captivates her readers with a story of transformation and growth, and writes with clarity and ease. Perhaps most enjoyable about "The Awakening" and Kate Chopin's short stories is the vivid New Orleans setting. Chopin pays attention to the charms of Louisiana in this novel--Creole cooking and language, Southern black and French mannerisms of the time--not limiting herself by focusing on members of the elite. Definitely worth checking out!

Desires vs. Duties: A Review of The Awakening

At a time when a woman's roles in society were the doting wife and devoted mother, Edna Pontellier becomes more and more aware of her distaste for these responsibilities. Kate Chopin's heroine embodies the theme of escapism and the view of marriage and motherhood as traps. During the summer at Grand Isle, Edna becomes more apathetic towards her devoted, providing husband (whom she never loved, but was "fond" of) and vague, nondescript children (who symbolize children as burdens rather than blessings). As she distances herself from her family, Edna grows closer to a dear acquaintance and the object of her romantic desire, Robert Lebrum. Once Edna and her family return to New Orleans, she shirks her former duties, such as being a hostess on Tuesdays, and instead focuses on her artistic talents. When her husband goes on a business trip and her children stay with their grandmother, Edna becomes more bold and independent, finding pleasure in a man who satisfies her physical desire, Alcee Arobin. As her senses awake, she allows herself to become receptive to personal pleasures as a way to discover her true self and what she really seeks: freedom. The novel provides excellent psychological insights and guides the reader through Edna's mind as she begins the journey towards self-fulfillment and independence. The novel is also filled with symbols and motifs such as birds (symbolic of Edna), music (passion), the sea (escape), the young lovers (Edna and Robert), and the lady in black (always seen following the lovers as a symbol of their fate). Nearly every sentence bears a deeper, symbolic meaning. Through the vivid characterizations and descriptions of emotions and psychological drives, the reader is pulled through the novel with a passionate sympathy and understanding of Edna's motives. As the chapters come to an end, Edna presents her realization about her desires and takes the only path that can give her what she seeks. Though one may not agree with her choices, one can see her reasons. For that, Chopin establishes herself as a master of the portrayal of the female psyche and a phenomenal writer.