The Awakening and Selected Stories - Softcover

Chopin, Kate

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1420953087 ISBN 13: 9781420953084

Publisher: Digireads.com, 2016

Synopsis

“The Awakening” is the story of Edna Pontellier, an attractive young wife and the mother of two sons living in the Creole south in the late 19th century. Edna feels herself trapped in a marriage where she is unable to express her passionate sensuality and as a result explores a spiritual and sexual awakening through an affair with a younger man during one summer while her husband is away. Liberated by this experience she sends her children away and is determined to live a more independent and self-determined life. This behavior would lead to her downfall as it was not seen favorably by the members of her conservative 19th century southern community. “The Awakening” is a landmark modernist work which illustrates the confines of late 19th century America for women and the beginning of an era of changing social attitudes towards their role in society. The liberal portrayal of Edna in “The Awakening” was meet with great criticism when it was first published and essentially ended Chopin’s literary career. The reaction to its publication is indicative of the social attitude towards increasing freedom for women during this era. At the same time the novel was a harbinger of the greater independence that was soon to come for women in America. This edition also contains a collection of seventeen of Chopin’s most popular short stories and is printed on premium acid-free paper.

About this title

From the Inside Flap:

The Awakening shocked turn-of-the-century readers and reviewers with its treatment of sex and suicide.  In a departure from literary convention, Kate Chopin failed to condemn her heroine's desire for an affair with the son of a Louisiana resort owner, whom she meets on vacation.  The power of sensuality, the delusion of ecstatic love, and the solitude that accompanies the trappings of middle- and upper-class convention are themes of this now-classic novel.  

The book was influenced by French writers ranging from Flaubert to Maupassant, and can be seen as a precursor of the impressionistic, mood-driven novels of Virginia Woolf and Djuna Barnes.  Variously called "vulgar," "unhealthily introspective," and "morbid," the book was neglected for several decades, not least because it was written by a "regional" woman writer.  This edition also includes selected stories from Kate Chopin's Bayou Folk and A Night in Acadie, and an introduction and notes by Nina Baym.

From the Back Cover:

"A Creole Bovary is this little novel of Miss Chopin's."
--Willa Cather

About this edition

• Publisher: Digireads.com
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 1420953087
• ISBN 13: 9781420953084
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 200