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Fiction, American Fiction, World Literature, Fiction Subjects
The Awakening by Kate Chopin β€” book cover

The Awakening

by Kate Chopin, Philip Smith
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Overview

First published in 1899, this novel shocked readers with its open sensuality and uninhibited treatment of marital infidelity. The poignant, lyrical story of a New Orleans wife who attempts to find love outside a stifling marriage, critics have praised it as a forerunner of the modern novel. New introductory Note.

An American classic of sexual expression that paved the way for the modern novel, The Awakening is both a remarkable novel in its own right and a startling reminder of how far women in this century have come. The story of a married woman who pursues love outside a stuffy, middle-class marriage, the novel portrays the mind of a woman seeking fulfillment of her essential nature.

Synopsis

Hailed as an early vision of woman's emancipation, "The Awakening" tells of a woman in search of self-discovery who turns away from convention and society and toward the primal, becoming irresistibly attracted to nature and the senses. 1 MP3 CD.

Times

Kate Chopin is a pioneer in the treatment of sexuality in American literature… She does not speak only to women,but she speaks most powerfully about them.

About the Author, Kate Chopin

Kate Chopin was born in St. Louis, Missouri, In 1851. She began writing shortly after her Husband's death and, from 1889 until her own Death, her stories and other miscellaneous Writings appeared in Vogue, Youth's companion, Atlantic Monthly, Century, Saturday Evening Post, and other publications. In addition to The Awakening, Mrs. Chopin published another novel, At Fault, and two collections of short stories and sketches, Bayou Folk and A Night at Acadie. The publication of The Awakening in 1899 occasioned shocked and angry response from reviewers all over the country. The book was taken off the shelves of the St. Louis mercantile library and its author was barred from the fine arts club. Kate Chopin died in 1904.

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Editorials

Times

Kate Chopin is a pioneer in the treatment of sexuality in American literature… She does not speak only to women,but she speaks most powerfully about them.

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Chopin's (1850-1904) The Awakening, whose heroine rejects her husband and children as she indulges in solitude and in an adulterous infatuation, was embraced by the women's movement 70 years after its publication. Although they pale in comparison to the novel, these stories, which comprise Chopin's third and last short-fiction collection, serve to flesh out the Chopin oeuvre and deserve a place on women's studies syllabi. As in The Awakening , the author's social critiques here demythologize women, marriage, religion and family. A women escapes ``the incessant chatter'' of other females at a party and retires to the male domain of the smoking room, where she puffs on hashish and dreams of a love affair torn asunder. The perverse Mrs. Mallard revels in her newfound freedom when informed that her husband is a casualty of a train accident and dies of a heart attack when he shows up alive. Her fiance is wasted by illness and reeks death, and a repulsed Dorothea bolts; elsewhere, a monk is lured by the voice of a woman, a former intimate. And in a twist on the plot of The Awakening , a husband, plagued by suspicions of his late wife's infidelity, casts himself in the river.

From the Publisher

"Shelly Frasier's reading is thick with languor and sensuality as she creates an Edna who feels all but physically present."β€”-AudioFile

Book Details

Published
November 1, 1993
Publisher
Dover Publications
Pages
128
Format
Paperback
ISBN
9780486277868

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