The Awakening: and Selected Short Stories - Softcover

Chopin, Kate

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1503197123 ISBN 13: 9781503197121

Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2015

Synopsis

Set in New Orleans and the Southern Louisiana coast at the end of the nineteenth century, the plot centers on Edna Pontellier and her struggle to reconcile her increasingly unorthodox views on femininity and motherhood with the prevailing social attitudes of the turn-of-the-century American South. It is one of the earliest American novels that focuses on women's issues without condescension. It is also widely seen as a landmark work of early feminism, generating mixed reaction from contemporary readers and criticism.

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: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1503197123
• ISBN 13: 9781503197121
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 198