The Awakening: A Norton Critical Edition

By Kate Chopin

Book Overview

This Norton Critical Edition includes:

- The annotated text of Kate Chopin's modernist novel of marital infidelity, set in New Orleans and Grande Isle, Louisiana.
- A preface, a critical essay, and explanatory annotations by Margo Culley.
- Essays by acclaimed Chopin biographers Per Seyersted and Emily Toth, "An Etiquette/Advice Book Sampler" with selections from the conduct books of the period, and contemporary perspectives on womanhood, motherhood, and marriage.
- Forty-five reviews and interpretive essays on The Awakening spanning three centuries.
- A Chronology of Chopin's life and work and an updated Selected Bibliography.

About the Series

Read by more than 12 million students over fifty-five years, Norton Critical Editions set the standard for apparatus that is right for undergraduate readers. The three-part format--annotated text, contexts, and criticism--helps students to better understand, analyze, and appreciate the literature, while opening a wide range of teaching possibilities for instructors. Whether in print or in digital format, Norton Critical Editions provide all the resources students need.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393617319
• ISBN13: 9780393617313
• Release Date: July 2017
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.0" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

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

quietly submersed

Kate Chopin's "The Awakening" is the classic novel about women that "Madame Bovary" purports to be but isn't. It's not just a "woman's" novel, though, it perfectly (and poetically) captures the inner life of a solitary person who is forced to live for the sake of others. And while this has been a distinctly female position for a large part of Western history, it is a position that can be identified with by just about anyone in our current age of employee internet-use monitoring. This is a twentieth-century tale of discomfort with and reaction to antagonistic surroundings. For those of us who don't feel the need to procreate in an overpopulated world, Edna's (and presumably Chopin's) discomfort with children will make sense. For those of us who may not always know exactly what we want out of life, this story will strike a chord. Kate Chopin's writing is deliberate but not labored. She is particularly successful at depicting ambiguity in a way which is highly descriptive and communicative. This is a skill which I can't praise highly enough, and it culminates in an ending which is absolutely perfect. While criticism could be raised against "The Awakening" as another apology for the suicidal artist, Edna's literal and symbolic escape is less pretentious than Harry's in "Steppenwolfe," nor as indecipherable as that of any of Joyce's creations. Kate Chopin's novel is truly a classic in the sense that it should be a part of any survey of American literature. The Norton Critical edition is the best way to go, too, with helpful biographical information and literary criticism. If you want a more enriching experience with this novel, I'd highly recommend this version.

Great book but great lack in action

This is a great book reflecting the importance of a woman's desire to feel freedom and independence. Although this book is almost a century old, it is still a handbook for all repressed women in physically and/or mentally abusive relationships. The importance and elegant use of symbolism are also something to admire. However, the novel lacked in action. More action would have assissted greatly in people's desire to read this book.