The Awakening and Selected Stories

by Kate Chopin, Kaye Gibbons (Introduction), Nina Baym (Editor)

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 subject-matter: Edna's rejection of her domestic role, and her passionate quest for spiritual, sexual, and artistic freedom. From her first stories, Chopin was interested in independent characters who challenged convention. This selection, freshly edited from the first printing of each text, enables readers to follow her unfolding career as she experimented with a broad range of writing, from tales for children to decadent fin-de siecle sketches. The Awakening is set alongside thirty-two short stories, illustrating the spectrum of the fiction from her first published stories to her 1898 secret masterpiece, "The Storm."

About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

Genres: Classics, Fiction, Short Stories, Feminism, 19th Century, American, Literature

375 pages, Paperback

First published April 22, 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

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very weird thing that I have never come across before. This compilation of short stories by Kate Chopin has the name, the editor, the introduction and the ISBN # of the one I am holding in my hand...HOWEVER, the stories included, other than The Awakening are completely different.

I read
from Bayou Folk: Love on the Bon-Dieu; Beyond the Bayou; A Visit to Avoyelles; La Belle Zoraide; and In Sabine.

from A Night in Acadie: Ozeme's Holiday; A Matter of Prejudice; At Cheniere Caminada; A Respectable Woman; Regret; Athenaise; A Night in Acadie.

I have already reviewed The Awakening separately.

I enjoy Chopin's writing. I think she was ahead of her time in being able to confront longing in the female and she captures to perfection the cajun society she writes about. Modern day feminists have appropriated her work for their own purposes, but I doubt she would recognize modern-day feminism as anything she was writing about. These are true depictions of her time and what I love about them is the look at the racial interactions and the way she taps the souls of her lead characters.

My two favorites here are A Visit to Avoyelles, a heartbreaking realization that time alters things with an ending that is so poignant I sighed; and La Belle Zoraide, a very sad slave story in which everyone loses.

[Lesle · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Awakening
Kate Chopin was a Mom of five and unfortunately a Widow living in Louisiana. After her Husband's death she was left with a huge debt that was followed shortly after the loss of her Mother leaving her extremely depressed. Chopin's Doctor suggested she write for therapeutic and finances to help her through.
Chopin wrote The Awakening in 1899 about Edna and her struggles with social attitudes toward women. It is also about how she perceives herself and who she actually is. In Louisana a wife was legal property of the husband. The story tells the struggle and desires of a woman with a want of free spirit, unrestrained life vs what was normal social behaviors expected in New Orleans of the perfect Mother, Wife and Social Hostess.

Edna loves the fresh feeling music, painting, living independently of her family, and the passion of another gives her. As she finds this self expression she is self absorbed and the consequences? she loses the support around her. In the end her detachment from her young boys and that responsiblitiy of motherhood are too overwhelming.

In this day and age we would call her life abusive. 4 1/2 🌟 as the story is predictable.

The Story of an Hour (page 182) is a short story of Mrs. Louise Mallard who endures heart trouble and with great care is given the news that her Husband is killed in a train accident.
Oh how life is gone as she knew it. She succumbs to grief and retreats to a room. She is so sad, a typical marriage they had, not a bad marriage at all. He was a loving husband in his way. Stupor takes over. Than positive sightings of Blue Skys and listening of Birds singing allows the grieving to soften and a sense of relief to slip in. She will have a life of living for herself and not for her husband, a bit of freedom. The thought lightens her heart and she leaves the room with a bit of happiness.
But the sight...she was robbed of her freedom once again.

Chopin writes with a bit of controversy subject but mostly in this story is realism, life as it was known. 4 stars

[Lauren · Rating 5 out of 5]

I spent an entire afternoon reading the short stories in this book, enthralled and enraptured, skipping "luncheon" to bathe in the hedonistic tendencies of Chopin's women. I am now tempted to spent all of my student loans in some tailor's shop, a fine restaurant, a play. I am tempted to sleep with the neighbor and call it infidelity, though I'm not bound to any man. And mostly, because of this, I am happy to be free and alone, to have my options open in modern day life, to follow my thoughts and no one else's, to have no responsibility designated to anyone. To fulfill my passions without approval, to work, to read and learn and spend money on no one but me. Selfish? Yes. But, living in the American south, why not be selfish? Everyone else seems to suffer under the weight of providing for more than one. Content alone, and materialistic by nature, Kate Chopin's work makes me happy. And that's all the women in this work want, really. But it doesn't stop at so mindless a conclusion. Her work deals with racism, inferiority, the suffering of women, the controlling and lesser minds of certain men who put themselves on a high horse, plain and dull, courting women of beauty. She deals with independence. The fulfillment of the woman. By any means she, and no one else, deems fit.

*This review excludes The Awakening, which I will read sometime soon. For now, I'll review a couple of choice short stories.

“Desiree’s Baby” by Kate Chopin
Though Armand’s courting was swift and defined by a blind romantic prospect, the miscegenation triggers a wave of racism, a trait hoarded by the antebellum south’s white population. While it is overwhelmingly about race, there are tones of sexism dispersed throughout the work. Desiree, while housed by loving parents, is a typical childrearer when it comes to her relationship. Though not necessarily unexpected in the 1800s, the treatment she receives when eschewed from the home is packaged with the typical “mother’s duty.” She takes the child, now purged by its father for its skin tone, and she does not gather any possessions. Like some primordial mother, she’s forced from her own home without her own belongings, holding her only creation while his land metaphorically rips from her what little she has left on her own back. It begins with a dreamy outlook of motherhood and turns into a drudging responsibility. She is weighed down by a forced-upon inferiority complex that she believes in not because of her nature, but because of his designation of said nature. The twist at the end, a zenith of irony in literature, deems him partially African-American as well, but the wording—“I thank the good God for having so arranged our lives that our dear Armand will never know that his mother, who adores him, belongs to the race that is cursed with the brand of slavery”—implies that purging Desiree of her home is equal, in a sense, to purging his own mother, who also gave birth to a “quadroon,” a one-quarter African-American by descent. Familial ties are ruptured on the basest level, but also on a level of maternal guilt.

“At the Cadian Ball” by Kate Chopin
A predecessor to “The Storm,” the work seems to focus on transitory relationships that might have grown into something more befitting and fulfilling. However, they’re both stunted by the emotions and regulations of a culture. Because the ball is one of suitors and dames, there’s a finality to the relationships in place, and Calixta feels obligated to finish her time in the single life, regardless of who it might be with. Although Alcee is best-suited, his departure (a hoax) seems to indicate a permanent loss of what was blooming, turning into what Alcee sees as “a myth.” She goes away with a plain-faced and dull man that she has no real interest in, but rather settles for. Meanwhile, he is swayed by the confession of love from Clarisse. Never would he have gone with her if not for the extreme call of an emergency, a lie, indicative of her melodrama and desperation. It ruptures what might have been, and comments on the culture’s prospect of dating and marriage—limited dating, permanent devotion. Though it may result in a loveless marriage, she doesn’t care, as long as she’s adhering to southern culture.

“The Storm” by Kate Chopin
Chopin continues to take on heavy subject matter, especially for the time period, and the illicit sex is taboo even today. Adultery is a sin to theists, and theists dominated the literate bunch in the American south. However, she bravely writes about a lack of consequence due to this risqué happening. Calixta and Alcee, from the prior work, are ushered in the same house during a storm and their past tension from the ball culminates finally, six years after meeting. Meanwhile, their respective spouses take shelter—Bobinôt in a store as he buys his wife a gift of canned shrimp, and Clarisse in a town, unaware of the storm. They screw, they feel no guilt for having these feelings and the blissful unawareness of their spouses is indeed blissful. Perhaps if Alcee and Calixta had married those years ago, the passion would have long dwindled, as it has between him and Clarisse, who is relieved to get his letter saying she may stay away longer if it so pleases her. And it does. They’re all peaceful, and it’s a commentary on how the taboo of society does not always hurt—it may even gain for some individuals. Which kind of makes the word “taboo” null.

“A Pair of Silk Stockings” by Kate Chopin
While it may be pondered by early critics that the work is one of empty materialism, the silk stockings a metaphoric “serpent of Eden,” I think the work is a deserved indulgence of the modern woman at the time. Mrs. Sommers, having come across $15, initially plans to take the responsible route and spend it on her children, borne with a man who she’d never dreamed of being with in her youth. She’d been taken from her previous wealth and thrust into a life of motherhood in which her own joy was sapped for the duties expected of her. A day of indulgence is not a blasé, glamorous escapade, but also a brilliant display of a woman’s guilt in the time period for doing something she’d enjoy. She doesn’t strip herself bare to feed her children but she doesn’t starve them either, she cares for them, as mediocre as it may be. But the hedonistic tendencies of the individual is a subject I particularly like, the meaning of self-satisfaction and the attitude of women bravely engorging alone, shopping alone, pampering themselves alone. There is no sentiment from a man that she’d fall to her knees to appreciate in the work—it all comes from her. It’s a brave and particularly enjoyable work of greed and feminism. It is her money. Not her husband’s, not her children’s. And though moral responsibility has designated it being spent on them, the overtaking self-pampering usually unseen by the audience as a good thing prevails over those demands.

“The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin
Cheering at the funeral procession and giggling in the wake of death is a crime due with the punishment only karma can pay. But is Louise Mallard so wrong for celebrating the death of a shackling life? Chopin studies the nature of the woman who must suffer under the wings of a usually nondescript man, not necessarily abused but subdued, and her study of women is unconventional for the time. They indulge—they’re all hedonists. They’re nowhere near angels, but they don’t want to be. They care, sometimes, to please people, but more importantly, they aim to please themselves. And who can argue against happiness? No, they don’t hurt anyone, but they certainly don’t care for people getting hurt. In this case, Louise is more than ready to embrace her husband’s death. Even the weather reflects her joy of warm, sunny days to come. Her abrupt sob is not genuine. There is no shock. When you’re told of death, the disingenuous and trained part of you says to cry. The natural part of you denies it. She swallows this claim with haste, springing up at the prospect of it. Of course, this cannot go. Denoting that women cannot survive without men might not have been Kate Chopin’s intention, but the implication is there. Perhaps it’s written that way to sell to audiences—this woman celebrating death is bad, isn’t that right, fellow moral readers? But her enjoyment strikes her so hard that her body cannot function anymore. A woman has not lived with such joy in her heart—a woman is not trained to endure such a pleasure.

[Bethany (Beautifully Bookish Bethany) · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars rounded up

This was such an interesting reading experience, and I'm glad I read the introduction for context. She's known for The Awakening (which is part of this collection) and its shocking focus on female sexuality and pleasure. And I do think her work is an important and complicated part of feminist history for the way she engages with women as being complete people, with identities outside of being a wife and mother. Not to mention the sapphic undertones that show up in addition to the more overt sexuality between men and women. But there's another thing at play here that is worth talking about too.

According to the introduction, Kate Chopin lived and wrote in the late 1800's and grew up in a family that prior to the Civil War, enslaved people. Some of whom were her step-siblings. Let the horror of that sink in- the fact that they "considered as family" enslaved people who were born as the result of sexual assault by her family members. I think knowing that history sheds light on how she writes Black people in her stories. Because they are mostly set in Louisiana and feature a lot of Black people, some of mixed racial identity, some not. Some are protagonists, others are side characters. And yes, there are parts of it- from the language used to the way some of the characters speak- that we could call "of its time" and has racist elements. However, what struck me was how often she imbues humanity into these characters. And not in a paternalistic sort of way. Rather in a way that might reframe them as passionate in love, or struck by grief, or having human foibles.

For instance, in La Belle Zoraide, the main character is an enslaved maid of mixed race who falls in love with a Black man with dark skin. Her "Madame" forbids the relationship, but their love can't be stopped. Until Zoraide gets pregnant, admits what happened, and then he is sold up north and her baby is taken from her. In her grief, she looses her mind and thinks a bundle of cloths is her baby, even when her enslaver attempts to return her true child to her. It's written like a romantic tragedy, the sort of thing that at the time would typically center white women and is therefore subverting expectations and assumptions of the late 1800's. It's really interesting, if difficult to read at times because of the language that is used. Overall, I'm glad I read this and am still processing my thoughts on it.

[Genia Lukin · Rating 1 out of 5]

I have to put this out there straight off; objectively this is a quite good book, a classic, and I have seen many other people like it.

I cannot tell anyone not to read it, and, in fact, the writing style (though very much of its time) is clear and easy and well-crafted. Chopin knows her job as a writer, and does it decently, though perhaps, in my opinion only, she is not as fabulous as others make her out to be.

On the other hand, my personal prejudice plays a great part in the rating of this book. I have never been able to understand that brand of Feminism (though I consider myself a Feminist, with full honours, I hope) that said women should, as a reaction to their oppression, become petty, thoughtless egotists, abandon everything, and do what they want, or else there is no point to their lives.

Edna is exactly that sort of character, and though I can't say for sure whether the author condemns or approves of her (though I think the latter) I know that the text is considered a classic cornerstone of feminism, and that genuinely bothers me.

Edna is not a wholly reprehensible person, of course, nonetheless, her basic attitude, which is made legitimate in the book, is "screw everyone, I'll do what I want". Her husband is certainly not a supportive, nice man, whom she could love, but he is not abusive or dreadfully oppressive, even for the times, and he deserves a modicum of respect, which she fails to give him. Her children, too, are to be pitied. Her life at the last, and her suicide, are all done with that complete throwing-off of responsibility that, I think, has no place in feminism, just as it has no place in any other movement or set of human relations.

I can't approve it, condone it, or rate it higher than I did.

[Hanneke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ik vond het een prachtig boekje en Edna een ontroerende vrouw. De sfeertekeningen zijn erg mooi. Het warme strand, de zon, de strandhuisjes, de zee, het vrolijke gezelschap op het eiland, de muziekavondjes. Het leven is mooi. Er is geen sprake van de naargeestigheid en donkere atmosfeer zoals die naar voren komt in Madame Bovary. Ik vind het daarom onterecht dat dit boek met Madame Bovary wordt vergeleken. Edna wil oprecht haar eigen vrijheid en ze wil met rust gelaten worden. Zij heeft daar geen achterbakse motivatie bij zoals Mdm Bovary. Kate Chopin maakt vaak gebruik van zware symboliek en metamorfosen. De metamorfose van Edna van een conventionele huisvrouw naar een vrije geest vindt plotseling plaats. Op het moment dat Edna voor het eerst zonder hulp weg zwemt in zee, ondergaat ze een sensueel gevoel van vrijheid. Afrodite is gerezen uit het schuim! Dit emotioneert haar zo zeer, dat ze meteen daad bij het woord voegt en de nacht in een hangmat doorbrengt en weigert naar binnen te komen, al dringt haar echtgenoot nog zo aan. Haar eerste stap in de vrijheid! Van dat moment gaat Edna uitsluitend voor zichzelf leven. Als Robert er uiteindelijk blijk van geeft de conventies te willen respecteren, blijft Edna haar streven naar vrijheid trouw. Ze kiest voor een wel heel symbolisch einde. Het moet me van het hart dat ik 'De Ontnuchtering' een echt pertinent foute Nederlandse vertaling van 'The Awakening' vind. De vertaler vond blijkbaar dat Edna ontnuchterd werd. Naar mijn mening werd ze helemaal niet ontnuchterd, hoogstens teleurgesteld. Edna ontwaakte en niets anders. Echt fout dat zo'n vertaler ons zijn/haar eigen interpretatie op wil dringen.

[Dusty · Rating 5 out of 5]

Most reviews of The Awakening begin with a qualification -- "For a woman of her time, Kate Chopin..." -- but not this one. I loved it from start to finish, loved it up, down, and sideways, loved it in a house, with a mouse, etc. It's an angsty American masterpiece -- a Catcher in the Rye for late 19th Century women, if you will, though not only women should/do identify with Edna Pontellier's internal/external struggle against the social "norms" that strap her without her consent into the "mother-woman" electric chair.

But just as enjoyable, and just as worthy of your time, is Chopin's short fiction, a few representatives of which are included in this Penguin Classics edition. I had read a few of these before -- "The Story of an Hour", about a woman who revels for 60 short minutes in the (misreported) news of her husband's death in a train accident; "A Pair of Silk Stockings", about a woman who squanders her time and money in a desperate but guilty attempt to break away from her family and think about herself for awhile; and "Desirée's Baby", about a woman of unknown heritage whose life and marriage are ideal until (gasp!) her baby is born black -- but the others are playful and innovative and socially important, too. I kept the book on my "to-read" list for an extra month hoping I would find the time to return to and finish the last three of these stories, but it seems the stars have other plans in mind for my reading time, at least until the end of the semester.

Anyway, Kate Chopin: One of my new favorites. The obsession commences.

[sologdin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A complex text. On the one hand, it chronicles, somewhat sympathetically, worthless waste of space proprietor losers in New Orleans, who are unwilling to do anything for themselves and accordingly would not survive without their legions of anonymous servants, whom they identify on the basis of skin color alone and about whom they complain constantly despite their abject dependence thereupon (cf. Agamben on Aristotle regarding slavery and the 'use of bodies')—a presentation in which the Civil War is no caesura for slaveowners, except for a change in nomenclature. We see this plainly in comparing the novel with the concomitant selected shorts, mostly set in and around New Orleans—some of which are antebellum, demonstrating an unchanged proprietor demeanor and lexicon--except that the earlier tales mention 'slaves' specifically. This attitude toward servants persists currently in the city—we have homes marketed on the basis of no ‘white hands’ ever having worked the kitchen, say. It’s irredeemable, no matter which time period.

On the other hand, this text is certainly an important moment of gender egalitarianism, making the feminist argument for liberation from servile marriages to indifferent or cruel spouses. In this regard, it rectifies an imbalance carried forth from the ancient world, as described by Foucault in the History of Sexuality books--how husbands maintained wives for household management and production of heirs; concubines external to the oikos for care of their persons, including sexual aesthetics; and young boys for ‘true love'--an erotic-economic quadrilateral.

Chopin’s protagonist accordingly maintains a marriage that lacks desire, but features wealth and social position (which her husband is eager to preserve despite her leaving him); an out-of-town paramour whose main function is to catalyze the liberation of her mind from an indifferent marriage and which person she very likely prefers over all others; and a convenient crosstown lover who fills the void, as it were, left by the liberator when he is unable to be physically present at all times.

Though Chopin was ostracized in her time for suggesting uxorial liberty in this novel, the modern era is thoroughly chopinized, insofar as it is not so difficult, for instance, to have become entangled simultaneously with three married women, who are quite distinguishable otherwise, in the three different roles described by this novel, i.e., as loathed spouse, as extrajurisdictional lover-liberator, and as hot local convenient and casual fuck. At no extra cost, all three women themselves shall be involved with all three types of person simultaneously, a quadrilateral of quadrilaterals, all because the women “apprehended instinctively the dual life—that outward which conforms, the inward life which questions” (57), which reminds one of the Frankfurt School interpretation of Luther--and, in apprehending it, the requisite revolutionary anagnorisis, desire to escape it.

In both the novel and the real situations that I’ve known, the catalyst that awakens a somnolent spouse from her dogmatic slumber is a near-death experience or some event that confronts mortality—here, a swim into the Gulf, “as she swam she seemed to be reaching out for the unlimited in which to lose herself” (74), the “stretch of water behind her assumed the aspect of a barrier which her unaided strength would never be able to overcome” (id.). When she explains this experience to her husband later, his dismissiveness triggers the inference that life is too short for indifference and cruelty—which creates the space for desire for the absentee lover: “No multitude of words could have been more significant than those moments of silence, or more pregnant with the first-felt throbbings of desire” (77). From there, it is more or less axiomatic that she will leave her husband—and once that seal is broken, it is beyond easy to develop a third person when the second is unable to discharge the obligations created. She “began to feel like one who awakens gradually out of a dream, a delicious, grotesque, impossible dream” (78)—almost effortless, therefore, to create erotic quadrilaterals.

It's likely, then, that this text stands for one of the practicable Rules for Affairs. We all know the first and most basic rule--mutuality of risk and obligation (i.e., married persons who have affairs with unmarried persons are fucking insane, say)--but here we see the chain of inferences to show that there will need to be some sort of distance between the spouse and the lover-liberator for the liberation to occur: out of town might be enough. And the corollary: once the distant lover-liberator defaults, the local casual lover is retained. Good times shall accordingly be had by all.

Heavily recommended, especially for those living out the four-sided life.

[E. G. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Introduction: The Second Coming of Aphrodite, by Sandra M. Gilbert
Suggestions for Further Reading
A Note on the Text

--The Awakening

--Emancipation: A Life Fable
--At the 'Cadian Ball
--Désirée's Baby
--La Belle Zoraïde
--At Chênière Caminada
--The Story of an Hour
--Lilacs
--Athénaïse
--A Pair of Silk Stockings
--Nég Créol
--Elizabeth Stock's One Story
--The Storm: A Sequel to "The 'Cadian Ball"

[Rachel Lu · Rating 5 out of 5]

More and more, it seems like I read books in snippets, a few pages or chapters at a time, forcing myself to sit still and stay focused on the text in front of me. I’ve discussed with multiple friends this strange disenchantment, the inability for novels to wholly draw me into their world as they did when I was younger so that I would sit for hours on end enveloped in the ineffable magical quality of the novel. I randomly picked up The Awakening this week as I was sifting through books I own but have never read, and I decided for no apparent reason at all to read this story that I had started a few years ago but never finished. So it is all the more surprising then that The Awakening lulled me into its oceanic cradle from the first scene of the Pontelliers vacationing off the coast of New Orleans to the final images of the undulating waves. I had zero anticipations going into this book, much less expected a five-star read out of it, but there is an inexplicable magnetism to The Awakening. More than just wanting to nestle within its beautiful prose, I think I was morbidly eager to understand Edna’s self-destructive and simultaneously liberating actions and see what fate had in store for this woman who has disregarded her society's pressures and demands.

When The Awakening was first published in 1899, the novel ruined Kate Chopin’s career and social standing. One would think that prior novels which feature female marital infidelity, such as Madame Bovary and Anna Karenina that were almost instant classics, would set the stage for The Awakening such that Chopin would not face the backlash she did. But that was France and Russia and those were male authors and, well, Kate Chopin faced a gender disadvantage in a Puritanical America that did not excuse the immorality of her book. And shocking still is people’s reactions TODAY to The Awakening. Most of the criticism I’ve seen revolves around Edna’s selfishness and promiscuity. She is spoiled, confused and apparently undeserving and unworthy of the reader’s sympathy. Wow. After 120 years, it is so clear through these people’s comments (just look below at the Goodreads reviews) that we are very much so still operating under the male gaze that strips a woman from her gender and sexuality unless it has to do with motherhood. What is it about Edna’s sensuality and sexual awakening that disfigures everyone’s perception of this book?

Of course Edna is selfish, this is not disputable, but to focus on that character flaw so much as to magnify that trait and let it swallow Edna’s character is to ignore the lack of autonomy she has, the marriage she is trapped in, her robotic perfunctory movements that she has been performing up until now as a way to placate societal expectations. Once, when she is sunburned, Edna’s husband “look[ed] at his wife as one looks at a valuable piece of personal property which has suffered some damage” and that is exactly how he views her—as a piece of property (44). I am not endorsing Edna’s affairs, but I simply don’t understand how you cannot feel even a morsel of sympathy for Edna who is trapped in a domestic bubble that she cannot pop. Rather than view her with contempt, how can readers not see the tragic story of a woman (don’t read any further than this if you don’t want a spoiler!!!) whose only liberation can be found in death. And is her act not selfless in a way at the end, when she is thinks of Madame Ratignolle’s last words to her ("'Think of the children, Edna. Oh think of the children! Remember them!'") and of her own earlier remarks to Madame Ratignolle ("she would give up the unessential, but she would never sacrifice herself for her children")? She does think of the children, giving herself up to the sea so that her own reputation may not stain their societal position in the future, but remains true to her own essence by not letting herself be shackled by society’s demands of how she should behave. Edna is not a character I’m particularly fond of, but I am very sympathetic towards her situation, and her character doesn’t color my perception of this beautifully written, revolutionary, feminist fin de siecle novel.

I borrowed this book from my friend some years ago, and I should probably return it to her soon. I must have my own to highlight and underline and peruse fondly from time to time.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Free download available at Project Gutenberg

Just arrived from Canada through BM.

A very touching novel, I loved it.

[Thomé Freyre · Rating 3 out of 5]

"The Awakening" vem reforçar, a minha de há muito tempo convicção, de que as melhores escritoras são da América do Norte. Existem dois clássicos absolutos da literatura mundial, que versam sobre a mesma temática desta obra, a saber: Madame Bovary e Anna Karénina; são sobre mulheres que rejeitam e abandonam o limbo esposa-mãe, que lhe é imposto pelo patriarcado, e consequente degradação moral, social, etc...
A grande diferença entre Flaubert,Tolstoi e Kate Chopin, foi só mesmo o facto de esta ser mulher, pois enquanto os autores de Madame Bovary e Anna Karénina, continuaram a publicar, e a ser reconhecidos como génios da literatura, Kate Chopin, após a publicação de "The Awakening", viu-se completamente ostracizada, pelas editoras, obviamente, e pela sociedade conservadora do sudeste dos Estados Unidos da América, no virar do século dezanove/vinte.
Os restantes contos inclusos no livro, são pequenos episódios, tendo por base a cultura crioula francesa, da qual a autora em parte descendia.

[Delynn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This Chopin collection perfectly spotlights the dreamy, fluid quality of her work. As always, I appreciate the depiction of the vibrant French Cajun locality, which Chopin displays with pinpoint accuracy. The short stories featured here seem to effortlessly glide along: short, snappy, and immersive.

Chopin's laser focus attitude definitely emerged as a motif throughout the work; her ability to get across what she wanted to say and stop as soon as she had was amazing (among others, this is a great reason to teach it to writing students - knowing when a story is over is a gift). Each story works as a perfectly contained treatise on its subject.

My favorite ongoing theme was the quiet feminism. While she certainly wasn't a radical, her humanist perspective of women as fully-realized beings harmonizes with it. Women are people, and as such are just as multifaceted as anyone else. Men and women can both be romantic or not, clean or messy, fashionable or boring, pretty or plain, intelligent or airheaded, and so on. While Chopin's goal may not have been outright feminist activism, her portrayal certainly covers that ground. She is a master of the human condition.

I really enjoyed this collection, and I was glad for the chance to explore more of her work. As with most consolidative works, there were ups and downs, but my overall impression was very positive.

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book for the first time when I was sixteen, before I understood myself as a feminist or an artist or had any sense of my own possibilities or power, and it changed my life. This story for me is a cautionary one about the danger of awakening to your reality and trying to take control of your own life before you have the necessary skills, a community or a system of support. Edna is invalidated by her husband and his world, abandoned by her lover, and not truly believed in by the one woman she turns to for inspiration and support. I grappled with a story for a long time that paints a revolutionary woman as ultimately not enough, but I've come to see Edna not as a failure, but as failed. She is brave, idealistic, and takes unimaginable risks to make her life into something good. In the end, she finds herself utterly alone--it's understandable that she could not come back from the abyss she dared to contend, because there was no one on the other end, urging her through.

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reread from high school; I remembered almost nothing but the ending. The writing is beautiful.

[maricar · Rating 4 out of 5]

I admit it’s difficult to try to put up what I think would be my own review of The Awakening without it being influenced by Sandra Gilbert’s introduction (uhmm, so maybe I shouldn’t bother, eh). And yes, this reading was done haltingly, in between long stretches of intervals… *shakes fist* damn you, attention span shot to hell!

To posit Edna Pontellier as a ‘mother-woman’ on the verge of going through minute yet slyly rapturous, if harrowing, changes from within which would ultimately coalesce into a sort of ‘second coming of Aphrodite’ is an interesting take.

I’m not well-versed in feminist schools of thought, and, indeed, Edna’s (rather inexplicable) journey towards emancipation from the shackles of family and societal expectations to approach an existence much like that of the deity, is something I would not have been able to connect. But, as Gilbert has listed the nuances with which Chopin laid the setting and events wherein Edna would find brimming dissatisfaction, disquiet, and then silent resistance (for example, recurring themes of gendered objects), I do find myself having to applaud this author’s writing style.

What is also striking for me is the resilience with which Chopin refused to stick to conventional norms as to how an event should play out, and even how seemingly innocuous statements or behaviors from decidedly normal characters inadvertently give a faintly surrealistic dimension to a scene.

Edna’s persona in turmoil, for instance, sums up the ways in which a reader can never truly anticipate anything from this story. The heroine shifts from extremes of happiness and complacency with her lot in life, and in the next, she wants – no, craves – to be disconnected and swept away from her husband, her friends, her suitors, and even her children. She could be mellow in a nondescript domestic tableau and then later on become slightly irritable and choose to walk away from it all. She could be unwittingly seductive to the two men who pursue her attention and in the next breath wish to be rid of their company (the fact the she is entertaining such attentions is, of course, food for thought already).

Perhaps it is because of how Chopin almost always abruptly turned the nature of Edna and of the events unfolding around her in ways unexpected or unconventional that makes this novel worth waiting out ‘til the end. True, the ending was too ambiguous to provide any concrete sort of closure, but that perhaps was the intent…

And as I do try to find words to describe how I more or less feel about this work, the image that persistently (and strangely) crops up is that of a scene from the 2005 Pride and Prejudice film, in which Elizabeth Bennet’s aunt remarks to Lizzy, after meeting Mr Darcy, “There’s something…pleasant about his mouth when he speaks.”

For me, Chopin’s style is not so much grandiose or flowery (as I have originally feared from some authors during this period) as it is sedately elegant. She has honed a fine balance between injecting a sense of judicious economy and allowing freedom for fanciful and emotive ruminations in her narration. (Perhaps that’s where the Mr Darcy spectre comes forth – a man outwardly staid but surprisingly capable of impassioned expression… I don’t know…)

Such juxtaposition can, for instance, be witnessed in the following passage:

Mademoiselle opened the drawer and drew forth the letter, the topmost one. She placed it in Edna’s hands, and without further comment arose and went to the piano.
Mademoiselle played a soft interlude. It was an improvisation. She sat low at the instrument, and the lines of her body settled into ungraceful curves and angles that gave it an appearance of deformity...
Edna did not know when the Impromptu began or ended. She sat in the sofa corner reading Robert’s letter by the fading light...
The shadows deepened in the little room. The music grew strange and fantastic – turbulent, insistent, plaintive and soft with entreaty. The shadows grew deeper. The music filled the room. It floated out upon the night, over the housetops, the crescent of the river, losing itself in the silence of the upper air...
Edna was sobbing, just as she had wept one midnight at Grand Isle when strange, new voices awoke her…,” (116).

As it is, The Awakening is an easy read. More often than not, even enjoyable.

However, I have to say – much to my surprise – that is it not as enjoyable as the short stories following it.

These short stories, showing snapshots of the complexities of relationships between men and women, women and women, and almost everything else in between, were superbly written. Chopin illustrates, among other things, how the much-vaunted romantic love can be skewed, misunderstood, highly-politicized, or later be revealed as really nothing more than an ideal – which in itself can either be cathartic or disastrous.

Marriages are never completely stable, and, indeed, are more likely to be a prison that can literally bring a woman to her knees in despair. Husbands and wives can be shown as people possessing unknown depths of blissful ignorance at the rot that has taken hold of their relationship.

And then there are stories that dwell largely on the role of women – mothers who, for once, allow themselves to be selfish and indulge (be it for just one day), wives who have reached the end of their tether and stand up their husbands, and in turn, discover something about themselves, or single women who daily have had to confront the world at large and often come out as the victims.

Overarching these vignettes is a reflection of women in society (and indeed, society reflecting on women), as problematized and succinctly highlighted by the author.

And, yes, the endings in these short stories can leave one surprised, disoriented, or rueful.

Well, that certainly was the case for me. And the sensation was so refreshing I never wanted my edition to run out of these novellas.

[Shannon · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have tried very hard to understand why so many people like Kate Chopin's work. I read "The Awakening" a year ago, and I am currently working my way through "At Fault." I just don't get the appeal.

Certainly, her skill drastically improved in the span of time between "At Fault" and "The Awakening." However, as a writer she is not very good. Her writing is mundane, monotonous, and sometimes just plain dull at best. She had a way of being blunt to an extreme and I don't think I've ever read another writer's work that was so devoid of meaningful character development or description.

As a whole, I couldn't understand why this is considered a positive feminist novel.

This story was hard for me to enjoy because it essentially asks you to feel something for a bunch of characters that don't really deserve your pity or respect. Selfishness reigns supreme in this tale, from the villainous cold-hearted husband to the supposed hero, right down to the so-called heroine Edna.

(view spoiler)[Her husband wants exactly what he wants, what he feels he is entitled to since Edna consented to their marriage, and he systematically turns the children against Edna because he does not get satisfaction.

Edna agrees to be married but is unhappy when it affects her free and flighty nature. She laments not having a connection with her children but also makes no genuine effort to restore a connection with them. She flirts with Robert and eventually they fall in love, and she begins to feel conflicted by marriage and her desire to be with a man she really loves.

Robert is also selfish. He seemingly has no issue with flirting and dallying with Edna right under the nose of her husband, however, he does not want the responsibility of a genuine relationship with her. Once he begins to realize that Edna is seriously considering leaving her husband for him, Robert starts backing out. He plays the coward and travels off to Mexico to avoid her, only to come back and toy with her again before dumping her for good.

Meanwhile, while Robert is away in Mexico, Edna's love is not quite so strong for him to prevent her from taking another man as a lover.

Yet when Robert leaves her for good, her empowerment and strength as a 'modern woman' abandons her with him. Her pride won't let her overcome it, and she instead chooses an easy out by way of suicide. (hide spoiler)]

The choices made by the 'heroine' of this piece do not reflect a positive message for feminists. At best, the 'awakening' that this character experiences is one of an immature girl to that of a slightly-less immature young woman. A true feminist novel would not send the message that the final conclusion made by Edna is the only positive outcome available.

If Edna had truly 'awakened' into a mature woman of her age and with her obligations, she would have taken pride in re-building a relationship with her children, regardless of whether she went back to her husband or not. If her pride would not let her bend to his will or at least attempt to compromise between the two of them, it could have at least allowed her to behave in a manner that would not reflect poorly on her children. Instead she dooms her children to a life in which scandal hangs about their heads like a perpetual rain cloud.

Feminists, truly, are not ruled by vanity, lust and selfish pride in themselves. They want equal rights in society for the female sex across all nations. They want a better, equal opportunity for all their children, and their grandchildren, and future generations. It is not personal selfishness to want a better and fair life for all.

Kate Chopin's character couldn't care less about anyone but herself and her own vain desires. At the heart of it all, in the end she is an incredibly weak woman who was dependent on and crushed by a man who abandoned her. Where is the feminism in that?

[Debbie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I haven't finished the entire book yet - I'll get to the short stories in the next day or so. But I finished "The Awakening," and I'm not sure just what I think of it yet, thus I've given it somewhat of an ambivalent 3-star rating. (Warning: my review contains information about the plot...)

This was an interesting read, made more so by understanding the era in which it was written (late 1800s) and that women back then didn't have the right to be as autonomous as they are in today's world. Edna is in a marriage that doesn't suit her, and she doesn't find much happiness in the day to day responsibilities of her domestic life, though she wouldn't describe herself as discontent. Then she meets Robert and ends up falling in love with him, and a switch is turned on as her "awakening" to her new self begins. My question is, what exactly is she awakening to? Robert disappears from her life for a few months just as Edna realizes her love for him; subsequently, Edna continues to uncover her true self as she starts shedding her domestic responsibilties - she stops taking callers to her home, she leaves the care of her children entirely up to the nanny, and she begins to do whatever she pleases despite the impact it seems to have on her husband and how their acquaintances view them. Then she meets another man, and while I'm not sure she ever gives herself completely to him, she spends much of her time with him and has an affair, all the while pining away for Robert. Of course, Robert returns to her life at this point, and Edna tries to resume her affair with him. Her "awakening" is beginning to make her look like the town trollop. It seems she is awakening to her adolescence, rather than to a new, better self.

But perhaps this is to be expected. Women today are able to study whatever interests them and support themselves without breaking any rules of society. Today's woman also freely dates and sleeps with whomever she wants, usually without creating a scandal. Most women go through this time of their life during their early twenties or while in college. Edna was never given that freedom, nor were other women of that time. Maybe it's normal that she seems to regress by today's standards.

The part of the novel that I truly had a hard time with was the ending. Throughout the book, Edna is striving to become more independent. She follows her own desires and even moves out of her house to live in a small apartment on her own. But when Robert rejects her because he realizes that their society will never allow them to be together in the end, I think she does something that is out of character - she kills herself. Instead of awakening to the independent Edna we've been witness to throughout the novel, in the end she shows herself to be dependent on a man for her happiness.

[Katherine 黄爱芬 · Rating 2 out of 5]

Novel ini memang "berat" saking gw gak ngerti ttg penyakit depresi akut spt yg dialami Edna Pontelier ini. Sbg wanita yg dituntut sbg pajangan bagi suaminya spt semua wanita di abad 19, membuat Edna tertekan. Tapi saya gak mudeng knp Edna jatuh cinta pd brondong muda bernama Robert tsb.

Baca novel ini membosankan, membingungkan dan gak bermanfaat bagi saya. Sekali lagi saya kejeblos dgn tag "feminist" bagi novel ini. Entahlah, definisi feminist bagi saya bukanlah dgn cara mjd depresi dan kemudian bunuh diri.

Cerita² yg lain jg sama saja. Saya gak paham dimana letak menariknya. Poinnya juga utk apa saya jg gak paham. Emang sulit memahami novel author ini.

[ness · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 ⭐

honestly? this was pretty good. i read most of it at a park on a nice summer day and the vibes, the aesthetic... it heightened the experience

overall: edna needs some milk

[Claire Wicks · Rating 4 out of 5]

Still my favorite classic. If you want to get into classics and want to read something profound and beautifully written, I would recommend this one. Also under 200 pages, so it's fast!

[Madeline · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've had a copy of this sitting around for ages, and I finally picked it up a few weeks ago. Something had me in the mood for turn-of-the-twentieth-century fiction, and I'm so glad. The Awakening is a succinct yet thoughtful exploration of marriage and how it constrains women to specific roles that deny them independence and personhood. We follow Edna Pontellier as she begins to understand these limitations and push against society's expectations of her as a married woman and as a mother. The pages are not devoid of love and romance, but they help Edna push the boundaries of "good" society and understand herself better. Chopin's writing is masterful and constantly clever and biting.

"That is, he could not se that she was becoming herself and daily casting aside that fictitious self which we assume like a garment with which to appear before the world."

[mayaime · Rating 4 out of 5]

Il y a quelque chose de tragique dans cette nouvelle qui m'émeut et m'attriste: elle signe (quasiment) la fin de carrière de Kate Chopin en 1899, l'année de sa publication polémique, étant jugée scandaleuse, immorale, absurde… bref, totalement décalée par rapport à son siècle; elle demeure ensuite critiquée et bannie (notamment dans la ville de Kate Chopin) jusqu'à la mort de l'écrivaine en 1904; elle sombre ensuite dans l'oubli pendant une trentaine d'années avant de réapparaître ENFIN, ses enjeux féministes (juste phénoménaux pour l'époque) étant progressivement valorisés, reconnus, étudiés etc.
J'ai franchement été éblouie par le courage de cette femme qui a tout perdu (du moins sa réputation, le soutien de ses éditeurs et de ses lecteurs etc.) en publiant une nouvelle explicitement opposée aux valeurs, aux normes et aux conventions de son temps. Malheureusement cette "émancipation" reste limitée et le texte demeure ancré dans un contexte américain difficile à lire aujourd'hui - par exemple, les domestiques n'y sont décrits (voire nommés) que par leur couleur de peau.
D'un pdv plus littéraire, alors même que certains passages m'ont semblé magnifiques et d'une précision touchante, la structure générale du texte m'a paru moins convaincante mais sans doute est-ce parce que j'ai fini de lire ce livre en grosse gueule de bois le lendemain de la fête de la musique

[Miriam Cihodariu · Rating 5 out of 5]

I didn't really expect to like this book so much, when I judged it, initially, by its first chapter. It tells the story of a woman who gradually decides to belong to herself first and foremost, because only then she can dedicate time, affection or attention to anyone else around her. The idea may seem a healthy one, but not a terrible novelty. Buuut, at the time when the book was written, it was very new indeed. Furthermore, at the time, few authors dared approach the matter of female infidelity so independent from finger-pointing and moralistic approaches.
What I liked most about The Awakening is the fact that each emotion, thought and action are described very naturally, not in a sentimental or emphatic or overly-describing way. Just as you would think of your own actions when you are too busy performing them and only marginally aware of their meaning put into (inner) words. It's really lovely to read and feels intimately connected to your own ways of seeing and feeling (and, ultimately, experiencing) the world.

The additional short stories present in the volume are enjoyable as well, though maybe not equally impressive. All of them take place in the Creole area of New Orleans and its surroundings.

[Laurelas · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Awakening was interesting on some levels, and I loved how Kate Chopin expressed some voluptuous and sensual feelings, the "awakening" of a woman to her senses and to a freedom she never really experienced before... But it was sometimes lengthy in its descriptions, and overall I felt both captivated at times and bored at others.

The other short stories were less interesting, for the exception of one or two, and had this same ambivalence: beautifully written at times, less so at others.

Not one of my favourite reads so far this year, but nevertheless interesting in some aspects.

[Vanessa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everytime I read Kate Chopin, its like talking to an old friend. This person knows and understands me well and vice versa. It is a blessing, a heaven-sent that we have Kate Chopin as part of the shapers of our history.

[La Petite Américaine · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Awakening = Madame Bovary in 19th century Louisiana. Hells yeah!

Other stories = Twisted and rockin.

Kate Chopin is the master.

[katrina leming · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautifully written feminist piece that explores the human, specifically female, consciousness in a way profoundly pioneering for the time. Now, it plays out as a mildly stale and somewhat shallow endeavor into the female experience that is unable to be unbound from the hands of the men in Edna's life. It is always tragic to see a tale of femininity follow this plot but, of course, this was to be expected of a novel written in the 1890s. Regardless, there is much solace to be found in the life of Edna and her struggle to bear the daily oppression of life. The quest for freedom is fruitless and she is trapped within a true double bind in which the only escape is death. The water was calling her from the beginning and it only makes sense that it would call for her end. I often thought about how often women are hopelessly distracted by romance. I wonder how women would live if it did not exist. There may be a great loss of love, but I could only imagine what we could get done if we were not ensnared by a heavy propensity for love and fantasy. It seems though that once she had felt that great love, she was ready. There was one thing missing from her experience, and once Robert graced her with it, the awakening was complete and she was faced with a world that while more real than the life she knew before, was equally unbearable. Her death reminds me of that of Virginia Woolf; a loss of love and life force seems to demand a death by drowning that displays the pure beauty of the world one last time. Her death was her only act of agency through the entire novel.

[Yuridia · Rating 3 out of 5]

This collection was very interesting to read, and while The Awakening itself, I found hard to get into, a lot of her other stories really drew me in. I recognize why many love The Awakening, and it's one of those novels I want to reread when I'm older, but for now, the characters seemed to fall flat for me. My favorite of the short stories, though, would probably be La Belle Zoraïde and Désirée's Baby because of how heartwrenching they were in so few pages.

[Jenny Skells · Rating 4 out of 5]

solid 4.25

The Awakening was a 3.75 for me, but there were other short stories in this collection that pack a punch, especially for the time of publishing (late 1800s). Themes of women wanting freedom from marriage and societal expectations, a mother's responsibilities vs. her wants/needs, and how culture shapes our lives. I'll be returning to these short stories in the future.