The Awakening and Selected Short Fiction

by Kate Chopin, Rachel Adams (Introduction)

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 When it first appeared in 1899, Kate Chopin’s The Awakening was greeted with cries of outrage. The novel’s frank portrayal of a woman’s emotional, intellectual, and sexual awakening shocked the sensibilities of the time and destroyed the author’s reputation and career. Many years passed before this short, pioneering work was recognized as a major achievement in American literature.

Set in and around New Orleans, The Awakening tells the story of Edna Pontellier, a young wife and mother who, determined to control her own life, flouts convention by moving out of her husband’s house, having an adulterous affair, and becoming an artist.

Beautifully written, with sensuous imagery and vivid local descriptions, The Awakening has lost none of its power to provoke and inspire. Additionally, this edition includes thirteen of Kate Chopin’s magnificent short stories.

 
Stories Included in the Volume:
The Awakening
Emancipation: A Life Fable
A Shameful Affair
At the ‘Cadian Ball
Désirée’s Baby
A Gentleman of Bayou Têche
A Respectable Woman
The Story of an Hour
Athénaïse
A Pair of Silk Stockings
Elizabeth Stock’s One Story
The Storm
The Godmother
A Little Country Girl

 

Rachel Adams teaches nineteenth and twentieth-century American literature at Columbia University.

Genres: Classics, Fiction, Short Stories, Feminism, Literature, American, School

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1899

About the author

Kate Chopin was an American author whose fiction grew out of the complex cultures and contradictions of Louisiana life, and she gradually became one of the most distinctive voices in nineteenth century literature. Raised in a household shaped by strong women of French and Irish heritage, she developed an early love for books and storytelling, and that immersion in language later shaped the quiet precision of her prose. After marrying and moving to New Orleans, then later to the small community of Cloutierville, she absorbed the rhythms, customs, and tensions of Creole and Cajun society, finding in its people the material that would feed both her sympathy and her sharp observational eye. When personal loss left her searching for direction, she began writing with the encouragement of a family friend, discovering not only a therapeutic outlet but a genuine vocation. Within a few years, her stories appeared in major magazines such as The Atlantic Monthly, Vogue, and The Century, where readers encountered her local-color sketches, her portrayals of women navigating desire and constraint, and her nuanced depictions of life in the American South. She published two story collections, Bayou Folk and A Night in Acadie, introducing characters whose emotional lives were depicted with unusual honesty. Her short fiction often explored subjects others avoided, including interracial relationships, female autonomy, and the quiet but powerful inner conflicts of everyday people. That same unflinching quality shaped The Awakening, the novel that would later become her most celebrated work. At the time of its publication, however, its frank treatment of a married woman’s emotional and sensual awakening unsettled many critics, who judged it harshly, yet Chopin continued to write stories that revealed her commitment to portraying women as fully human, with desires and ambitions that stretched beyond the confines of convention. She admired the psychological clarity of Guy de Maupassant, but she pushed beyond his influence to craft a voice that was unmistakably her own, direct yet lyrical, and deeply attuned to the inner lives of her characters. Though some of her contemporaries viewed her themes as daring or even improper, others recognized her narrative skill, and within a decade of her passing she was already being described as a writer of remarkable talent. Her rediscovery in the twentieth century led readers to appreciate how modern her concerns truly were: the struggle for selfhood, the tension between social expectations and private longing, and the resilience of women seeking lives that felt authentically theirs. Today, her stories and novels are widely read, admired for their clarity, emotional intelligence, and the boldness with which they illuminate the complexities of human experience.

Reviews

[S. Adam · Rating 2 out of 5]

Okay, technically, I haven't finished reading the book because I still need to read the short stories that follow The Awakening. However, I must write what I think about Chopin's prized story before it escapes me. I absolutely disliked Edna Pontellier. I came into this novel with many expectations, primarily that this would be an amazing feminist novel. Nope! It was not, which I am okay with. I am not okay with how unhappy Edna is with her life. Yeah, her husband isn't super romantic, but her life seems to be pleasant. When he sees that she is acting peculiar, he gives her space and trust. She is wealthy, has marvelous social dinners, and two adorable sons. Her life seems pretty darn great. Yeah, I understand that she sought her personal freedom, but compared to the mulatto women she has employed as nannies and maids, she seems pretty darn free to me. I have nicknamed this book "Rich white girl problems". I may have liked her more if she was not so immature. She refuses to attend her sister's wedding for no apparent reason even though it would mean a lot to her sister and father, and she smashes vases and stomps on her wedding ring like a juvenile. Um, girl, aren't you like 28? Her love for Robert does not seem like love but more like an obsession. It promises her adventure and change, which she is justified for wanting, but she could have gone about it more maturely. First, she was never for sure that Robert reciprocated it, so it seemed like she lived mostly on fantasy. Once, Robert came back and she pulled out the truth in him, she was ready to do anything for him--not very independent. Also before Robert returns, she has that affair with Alcee just because she felt like it. Alright,cool, she should be free to do so, but it just shows how capricious she is. I suppose she is groundbreaking by breaking social norms of the time, like moving out of her home and leaving her children, but at the end her suicide just proves she is weak. She is not an example for anyone. She lacks maturity and strength. I don't see her as an example for either women or men, or anyone really. I see that she felt oppressed and suffocated,but she was too extreme in her way of escaping. I will say that I enjoy the description of the Creole life in New Orleans. I love that history that Chopin relates. I hope her short stories don't disappoint.

[Yoana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Review of The Awakening here.

The short stories are also great, especially At the 'Cadian Ball, A Gentleman of Bayou Têche and Elizabeth Stock’s One Story, showing a diverse and vital talent for storytelling.

The introduction, however, is dismal. First of all, it promptly spoils the novel and almost all of the stories, without any warning whatsoever. Secondly, it's rambling and lacks focus or any discernible point, wandering from trying to excuse or erase Chopin's racist beliefs to pointlessly asking questions about her personal life that lead nowhere. And thirdly and most offensively of all, it contains completely ridiculous accounts of the short stories that feel as though they were written by an internet troll to get a rise out of Chopin lovers by purposefully misunderstanding every single one of them. For example: the author of the introduction states the protagonist is The Story of an Hour died of happiness upon seeing her husband she'd believed to be dead - when literally the entire freaking story is about her happiness at being free from her tyrant at last and the last line is *so obviously* ironic; she believes Desiree's husband knew about his origins and purposefully lied to her in an act of supreme cruelty that drove her to suicide when it couldn't be plainer from the text that he's only then just found his mother's letter that reveals the truth - not to mention that the whole dramatic power of the ending is completely lost if that's the case; she claims the protagonist in At the 'Cadian Ball loves Calixta but marries Clarisse for her social status - his feelings fro Clarisse are directly described as a kind of love he's not known before, they drive his actions and the narrative of the story, and when she accepts him at the end I don't know how his supreme happiness could have been shown more clearly.

So, in conclusion, it's 4 stars for the novel and stories and 1 for the Introduction.

[Jimmy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m probably too harsh a critic on this one; but I have to be true to my gut reactions here. First, let me say that I 100% acknowledge both the significance of Chopin’s treatment of the oppressive conditions women faced in the turn of the 20th Century moment and the high literary competence of her writing style. I also admire the picture she paints of a people and culture (specifically white Cajun French) in a segregated southern Louisiana. My 3-star ranking is closer to a 3.5 ranking. From our 21st Century perspective, it’s natural to cringe at her seeming unreflective embrace of casual segregationist racism in the U.S. south; but she clearly also wasn’t as rigid in these racial mores as others of her generation were. But still… back to the text and story itself, I found Chopin to be a bit derivative of some of the more impressive and superior literary treatments of the themes she develops. Flaubert’s “Madame Bovary,” Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina,” Brontë’s “Jane Eyre.” Yes, yes, the contexts are different; but I’m just commenting on the literary excellence of these other writers when compared to Chopin, in engaging similar themes of oppressive social conventions, particularly regarding sexual and professional liberation, faced by women of similar upper/upper-middle class status. I give props to Chopin for engaging these themes so early in the context of the southern U.S. and I do believe she was a pioneer in this regard, well ahead of her time, with her influence on other talented Southern white women writers (Eudora Welty, Harper Lee, Shirley Ann Grau, and Flannery O’Connor come immediately to mind) clearly obvious. I do recommend this book.

[Jose Luis]

Beautifully written. I am not a big reader of feminist literature, but Chopin managed to put into words the whirlwind of thoughts and emotions that surged through Edna . Chopin managed to take me to late 19th century Louisiana. Nothing is superfluous or silly. For Chopin, each description of setting, every character, every piece of dialogue has purpose; there is an awesome depth to her brevity. Chopin shows us the journey of a woman into uncharted territory; territory so absurdly remote that Chopin's contemporaries rejected it as bullshit. I think that more than ever this novel resonates with it's readers. Edna's liberation is not just a symbol of feminism, but definitely a symbol of all of our attempts at breaking apart from society. And it shows us the dangers of taking our individualism to an extreme—an extreme where we become so isolated from the people around us that we can no longer be functional members of a society.

6/9 - I was thinking of pairing with Anna Karenina. Very similar characters

[annie · Rating 4 out of 5]

“The voice of the sea speaks to the soul. The touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace.”

melancholic and insightful. i was assigned this novel in high school and honestly skimmed it, but i'm glad i had to read it again for my american women writers class because i quite liked it. chopin's prose is imagistic and thoughtful, and her characters are captivating and nuanced. lots of reviewers here castigate edna for her choices and her personality, but i found her sympathetic and an engaging protagonist. chopin really shows how trapped women are by domesticity in this novel, and i admire the ambiguity this story takes on and chopin's refusal to condemn her protagonist. quite liked this one

[v · Rating 3 out of 5]

I started this collection of Kate Chopin's fiction with the short stories. I appreciated their Cajun characters and setting very much, but apart from one major exception ("A Pair of Silk Stockings"), their stock plots, thematic fixations, and local colorings failed to leave any impression.
The Awakening, however, demonstrates Chopin's considerable strength and skill as a writer. The character, choices, and fate of Edna Pontellier and those around her can't fail to provoke a reaction in any reader: two interpretations I had in mind that I don't see getting much play are the religious and the psychodynamic.
While Chopin, I'd argue, doesn't convey the literary insight or depth of a contemporary like Sarah Orne Jewett nor of Willa Cather (who brilliantly levelled the book in her review), this novella would be probably sit more comfortably amongst a tableful of today's fiction than any other American work of the 19th-century.
If anyone would like to read The Awakening but for boys, I'd suggest William Faulkner's The Wild Palms.

The voice of the sea is seductive; never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander for a spell in abysses of solitude; to lose itself in mazes of inward contemplation.

[Val · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kate Chopin’s writing within “The Awakening” definitely challenged the status quo around societal expectations for wealthy, white women. In that sense, I understand why Chopin was seen as “ahead of her time”. That being said, I refuse to acknowledge her work as a piece of “feminist” literature because of the lack of inclusion of Black women in her writings. All the Black characters seem to be background fixtures, despite the fact that many of her wealthy, white women protagonists are reliant on Black servitude for their quality of life. The mixed/mulatto characters are given some level of depth and humanity in certain short stories, but that is just proof of colorism, not an example of Chopin being forward-thinking. It’s an okay read but I probably won’t be picking up an Chopin ever again.

[Phoebe Cook · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this book so much. I love the way she writes. When reading this, I always think about the experience of black women in this place, at this time. Edna seeks to be freed from the roles society has defined for her as a mother and wife. She wants to be “free” herself, but never questions the freedom of others When the author mentions black (of what I’m assuming to be) enslaved women, I wonder how they would observe Edna. Do they think she is ungrateful, for she has freedom (in the context of their lives)? Are they baffled at her distaste for life? It’s an intriguing thought. Oh, and Edna is a water sign.

[Laura Hoffman Brauman · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an interesting novella to look at through different lenses. In The Awakening, Chopin introduces Edna Pontellier, a wealthy young wife and mother, who begins to question the roles and expectations that she has slid into without much thought or deliberation. She got married because it was the next thing to do, she had kids for the same reason. The novella explores the status quo and she ultimately lets her children stay with their grandmother, moves into a home of her own, and pursues her own interests. What's noteworthy about this story is that it was published in 1899, and at that time, these were completely radical ideas. It's interesting to me to compare this to contemporary novels where women have questioned their role as mother and left their children in others' care so that they can pursue their own interests and goals. Chopin keeps the children very distant in the novella, you see virtually no emotional connection between mother and child, and the impact of her distance from them is never explored, and I am sure that this creates a situation where the reader may be less critical of the decision. In other novels, the impact of this separation was portrayed as traumatic for the children and that (at least for me) created a stronger reaction as a reader. The other lens that is interesting to me when looking at this work is the lens of privilege - both racial and economic. Edna is wealthy and white - she is able to make these decisions and pursue what she wants because she has the resources and social standing to do so. She has servants who help to care for the house and the children and essentially everywhere she goes, people enable her to do what she wants. At one point, she is not feeling well and they find a house where she is able to lay down and rest for the whole day -- meanwhile, the novella talks about the children's nurse being up much of the night with the children. As much as there is in this novella to explore on the role of women in society, there is an equal amount to examine on the concepts of privilege and how that facilitates the idea of seeking one's own identity.

[Petra · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Awakening has been a novella that I have been meaning to read for a very long time. It has been hailed as a feminist classic which, in a way, it is. Edna Pontellier, our main character, is feeling unhappy and frustrated with her life with a quiet husband and children. Falling in love with other man awakes her passion and yearn for a different life and she decides to take her life in her own hands. In many ways, the novella reminded me of Anna Karenina in its' themes and unlikable characters. All of her short fiction in the collection as well deal with a problem which women faced in Chopin's society; when they are unhappy in their lives, they can't choose them without being shamed or hated by the people around them. However, my problem is that when all the stories deal with the same theme, they start to feel pretty much the same. In almost all of them, the wife is struggling and the husband is unfeeling or unable to present his feelings in the way that comes across to their wives. The Awakening is definitely the best part of the collection even though I must admit that the suffocation of the society didn't allow her to be as selfish as she was during the story (I am not talking about the ending, though). So yes, I do think that it is a fine example of classic feminist writing but it didn't blew me away the way I wished it to do.

[Theresa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dusted off the old high school bookshelf to add a little Chopin to my Hot Intellectual Summer. Needless to say, it was *far* more interesting than I remembered from my first read five (?) years ago. The dinner party scene? Hysterical. Edna's budding feminist angst? An absolute vibe. I still have a lot to unpack with this one, so I'm going to leave it with a solid 8/10.

[Kim Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Awakening certainly would have been scandalous in its time with its heroine openly flaunting every social convention attributed to women of that day. The author takes the reader along on a journey of rebirth and self discovery, of finding and developing an identity that is truly one's own and not merely a function of someone else's life. But the question becomes, can this passionate awakening fulfill every need in her life and truly make her happy at last? No spoilers, but I felt the ending to be anticlimactic.
The short fiction included in this volume often follows a similar theme. One that stood out for me, however, was Desiree's Baby, which addresses the equally difficult social conventions of race in that time. Overall, this book was a good read and I enjoyed it.

[Becki · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book has an underlying theme to each of its stories. Some would call it empowering for women. I would call it selfish. The women in these stories expect their lives to be perfect without any effort from themselves. I didn't like any of the stories and I will never read anything from this author again.

[Gela · Rating 5 out of 5]

Possibly one of the best books I have ever read about a depressed, hedonistic person who is likable.

[natalie · Rating 3 out of 5]

i technically did not read the short stories but honestly i think i’d had enough by the time i finished the awakening which is why i bought it anyways. i really liked the imagery and chopin’s writing style as she went on just enough of random tangents to build the world and edna’s society/social group that it felt well developed without unnecessary detail. the imagery of the vacation island and edna’s home and neighborhood along with the kind of vague descriptions of her mental and emotional awakening made it an enjoyable read and open to interpretation for what the moral of edna’s story is. however, the casual racism was obviously fucked up as it was written in 1899 and chopin herself was pretty morally and politically ambiguous, but i found adding that edna was the daughter of a confederate colonel was a weird and unnecessary detail. also, i absolutely understand the criticism of the book being about a wealthy white woman being bored and unhappy, because most of the book was edna moping in her mansion and drinking expensive wine. however, there’s a lot to say about her desires beyond what, on the face, looks like a luxurious life. i understand her desire to want her own house that she bought and decorates with the money she earned from her art rather than living a life entirely dependent on her husband. it makes sense as to why this book was so shocking at the time, making it seem radical, but in reality it barely scratched the surface of progress, which i guess wasn’t even the main point anyways given that chopin herself was not really an early feminist. i think for the time it was published, it was thought provoking and a little ahead of its time, and it made me reflect a little more on how i understand my own identity, but overall it seemed pretty surface level on the soul-searching front. i think having it end with her drowning herself in the ocean was fitting,
and kind of has a dual meaning- one is that she felt suffocated and needed to end her life because the last time she tried to change it it didn’t work and she remained in her marriage. on the other hand, it gives the idea that she was mentally ill, which is what people in the book thought that she was, but really she was just trying to develop her own identity and autonomy. if chopin had made edna mentally ill, it would’ve just reinforced the societal view of independent women that existed at the time, which would’ve contradicted the whole point of the story, so i think having edna kill herself out of her own free will was probably the most fitting, if not tragic, ending.

[Julian Garcia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Three trips through and it still hits. Finally finished the rest of the short stories as well, after purchasing this book almost 9 years ago. There's a Chopin short story I remember being blown away by that I read in college, but I can't remember what it was called, and now I wonder if it was ever Chopin that wrote it...anyway, the beauty of the main theme -- that of an unfurling consciousness -- is still the thing that reads most intensely to me. From one experience (the fantasy of true love brought to life), thoughts that are relegated to the back of one's mind because one doesn't know how to word them or contextualize them are shifted to the forefront. With awareness comes power, and with power comes freedom -- but without an anchor, that freedom is Edna's undoing. It is short but feels complete, and Chopin writes about the interiority of Edna's anxiety with acute, luminous prose and even a sense of satire (here, I disagree with Rachel Adams' otherwise brilliant introductory essay that she was punking on the women's societies Chopin frequented -- rather, I think she is lambasting the men who can't make heads or tails of them). We read it for last month's book club and discussion turned to something that I think I've come to resent, in a way: the idea that women in this time could only find true release through death. I almost look at it as Chopin's failure to imagine a better future for her. The limits of realism are entwined with its pleasures. The short stories are as incomplete as The Awakening is itself complete. Many of the themes are developed as a sort of dry run for her novel, but ultimately they are a bit narrow, the quickened narrative beats revealing the inherent weaknesses of short stories from great novelists (I'm thinking of you, Scott Fitz). Still, beautiful to return to after a 9 year absence -- even though it doesn't tower in my mind as it once did, I love it passionately.

[Zoey Sager · Rating 3 out of 5]

FYI: I only read the main story, "The Awakening"

I had to read this book for my AP Lit class, otherwise I would have never finished this book. The thing is, I "liked" this book but I'm not sure why. The main character was disagreeable and selfish and the writing was so-so (I realize it was written in the late 1800's but still), so there were many red flags in my mind. My relationship to this book is one where I "love to hate it" or "it's so bad it's good," and I'm so passionate about talking about it that someone could think I almost -dare I say- enjoyed the book.

Edna is an immature, attention-seekin', two-timin', child-neglectin', wench that needed to learn her place in society. I know this book is supposed to be about feminism and modern thinking, and I do believe that women shouldn't be controlled by men/society... but DAMN IT you can still do so without neglecting your kids and driving multiple decent people up the wall by making YOUR temper tantrums EVERYONE ELSE'S problem. Leonce still let her paint, shop, and hang out with Robert, all he wanted was for her to have a decent connection with the kids, stay home at least once a week and just keep up appearances.

[Jesse Villarreal · Rating 3 out of 5]

Disclaimer: I'm only discussing The Awakening portion of this book and not the short stories.

I've seen a few 1 star reviews for this novel and their justification for it is their hatred for Edna Pontellier. I think I saw one comment say "privilege white girl problems." LOL
Which is a fair remark considering how Chopin is trying to express how oppressed Edna feels, but it can be a little hard to be empathetic when she has "servants" doing all of her duties.

But the book isn't terrible. I thought it was beautifully written. It can drag and get kinda boring at times because of its realism style. As a writer, you'll enjoy it for Chopin's poetic descriptive prose, but as a casual reader you'll know if it's your cup of tea or not within the first few pages. The chapters are pretty short and the novel itself was only 100 or so pages, so it never feels mundane, and that alone might push you to finish it; but don't force yourself.

Other readers have compared this novel to Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy and have stated the latter being the better of the two, so it will most likely be the next book I read in this genre.

[Mackenna · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love u kate chopin

and rachel adams commentary was (for the most part) super insightful abt the world, intentions, and impact of kate chopin and her works. I especially found her comments abt kate chopin's multifaceted portrayal of race in her various works to be super interesting; I will admit it is not something I paid a super lot of attention to when reading 'the awakening' in 10th grade (aside from the casual observation that an outdated term was used to refer to a person of color and such instances).

[Kristin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This will always be one of my favorites. I first read it in high school, and then again in college where I did an entire senior thesis on it. It will always be one that I reread again and again. "The Story of an Hour" is just as good as "The Awakening." Both stories possess the theme of female identity -- challenging the traditional role of women during this time. These women desire their personal freedom and long for more in their lives, which is often what Kate Chopin is celebrated for in her writing.

[kayli · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Every step which she took toward relieving herself from obligations added to her strength and expansion as an individual. She began to look with her own eyes; to see and to apprehend the deeper undercurrents of life. No longer was she content to ‘feed upon opinion’ when her own soul had invited her.”

[lily moran · Rating 3 out of 5]

ngl the second time reading since i knew what was going to happen i did not give a single fuck ab anything leading up to the end. sometimes robert was a little sweet but i hate the ending so much that it literally ruined the whole book for me like wtf

[Sam Owens · Rating 5 out of 5]

my all time favorite book. everytime I re-read this story I find something new about it that I love. I first read The Awakening in high school, but re-reading it in my twenties was such a different experience and I resonated with it so much more deeply.

[Dave H · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Has she," asked the Doctor, with a smile, "has she been associating of late with a circle of pseudo-intellectual women - super-spiritual superior beings? My wife has been telling me about them."

Quite a nice read!

[I only read The Awakening, not the short stories.]

[Sabrina Itzell Rincón · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75

[Claire · Rating 3 out of 5]

the story of an hour & the awakening = 4 stars

[Jayden Miller-Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nothing matters
Women will never be free
Men are terrible
Therapy wasnt invented yet
Honestly pretty good book

[Bethany · Rating 2 out of 5]

kind of enjoyed the foray into Louisiana society...did not enjoy any of the characters whatsoever

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sometimes the books you read in high school are actually really good

[Zach Dankert]

“She could picture at that moment no greater bliss on earth than the possession of the beloved one.”