The Awakening, originally titled A Solitary Soul, is a novel by Kate Chopin, first published in 1899. Set in New Orleans and the Southern Louisiana coast at the end of the nineteenth century, the plot centers on Edna Pontellier and her struggle to reconcile her increasingly unorthodox views on femininity and motherhood with the prevailing social attitudes of the turn-of-the-century 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, generating mixed reaction from contemporary readers and criticism. 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 masterpieces of Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor, Eudora Welty, Katherine Anne Porter, and Tennessee Williams

The Awakening

KATE CHOPIN

Bantam Classic

The Awakening shocked turn-of-the-century readers and reviewers with its treatment of sex and suicide. In a departure from literary convention, Kate Chopin failed to condemn her heroine's desire for an affair with the son of a Louisiana resort owner, whom she meets on vacation. The power of sensuality, the delusion of ecstatic love, and the solitude that accompanies the trappings of middle- and upper-class convention are the themes of this now-classic novel. The book was influenced by French writers ranging from Flaubert to Maupassant, and can be seen as a precursor of the impressionistic, mood-driven novels of Virginia Woolf and Djuna Barnes. Variously called "vulgar, " "unhealthily introspective, " and "morbid, " the book was neglected for several decades, not least because it was written by a "regional" woman writer. This edition also includes selected stories from Kate Chopin's Bayou Folk and A Night in Acadie, and an introduction and notes by Nina Baym.

The Awakening, and Selected Stories

Literature & Fiction

Literary

Penguin Classics

In one volume, the two short-story collections that established Kate Chopin as one of America's best-loved realist writers. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Bayou Folk and a Night in Acadie (Penguin Classics)

United States

The Awakening (Little Clothbound Classics)

Chopin's 1899 classic features a New Orleans location. "Interesting and Timely . . . Chopin's oracular feminism and prophetic psychology almost outweigh her estimable literary talents." -- --Newsweek

Classics

Bard

The Compact Bedford Introduction To Literature

MIchael Meyer

Charles, Dickens

Lewis. Carroll

Margaret, Atwood

Anton Pavloviç Çehov

Bedford/St.Martin's

An introduction to the Awakening ... "to portray human existence in its subtle, complex, true meaning, stripped of the veil with which ethical and conventional standards have draped it is the work of genius on fiction, Kate Chopin wrote in June 1894, five years before she published her own masterpiece, the Awakening."

Bedford Books

The Awakening (Bard/Avon 1972.)

AVON.

246 pages - The Awakening - Emanicpation; A Life Fable - At the Cadian Ball - Desiree's Baby - La Belle Zoraide - At Cheniere Caminada - The Story of an Hour - Lilacs - Athenaise - A Pair of Silk Stockings - Neg Creol - Elizabeth Stock's One Story - The Storm; A Sequel to the Cadian Ball

Penguin??Books

When first published in 1899, The Awakening shocked readers with its honest treatment of female marital infidelity. Audiences accustomed to the pieties of late Victorian romantic fiction were taken aback by Chopin's daring portrayal of a woman trapped in a stifling marriage, who seeks and finds passionate physical love outside the straitened confines of her domestic situation. Aside from its unusually frank treatment of a then-controversial subject, the novel is widely admired today for its literary qualities. Edmund Wilson characterized it as a work "quite uninhibited and beautifully written, which anticipates D. H. Lawrence in its treatment of infidelity." Although the theme of marital infidelity no longer shocks, few novels have plumbed the psychology of a woman involved in an illicit relationship with the perception, artistry, and honesty that Kate Chopin brought to The Awakening. Now available in this inexpensive edition, it offers a powerful and provocative reading experience to modern readers.

The Awakening (Dover Thrift Editions: Classic Novels)

Reference

Dover Publications

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Books by KATE CHOPIN