The Awakening, Kate Chopin
The Awakening, Kate Chopin
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The Awakening

Author: Kate Chopin

Narrator: Eloise Fairfax

Unabridged: 6 hr 47 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 08/18/2024

Synopsis

Set in New Orleans, the story follows Edna Pontellier and her struggle to reconcile her increasingly unorthodox views on femininity and motherhood. It is one of the earliest American novels that focuses on women's issues. The novel's blend of realistic narrative, incisive social commentary, and psychological complexity makes The Awakening a precursor of American modernism.

About Kate Chopin

American author Kate Chopin (1850-1904) wrote two novels and about a hundred short stories in the 1890s. Most of her fiction is set in Louisiana and most of her best-known work focuses on the lives of sensitive, intelligent women.

Her short stories were well received in her own time and were published by some of America's most prestigious magazines-Vogue, the Atlantic Monthly, Harper's Young People, Youth's Companion, and the Century. A few stories were syndicated by the American Press Association. Her stories also appeared in her two published anthologies, Bayou Folk and A Night in Acadie, both of which received good reviews from critics across the country. About a third of her stories are children's stories-those published in or submitted to children's magazines or those similar in subject or theme to those that were. By the late 1890s, she was well known among American readers of magazine fiction.

Her early novel At Fault had not been much noticed by the public, but The Awakening was widely condemned. Critics called it morbid, vulgar, and disagreeable. Willa Cather, who would become a well-known twentieth-century American author, labeled it trite and sordid. Chopin's third anthology of stories, to have been called A Vocation and a Voice, was for unknown reasons cancelled by the publisher and did not appear as a separate volume until 1991.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Matthew on December 12, 2016

This review is being posted mainly because of the awesome backstory. I actually had to read this twice in high school and didn't care for it much either time. But, here comes my great story! When I was a sophomore in high school I went out with this girl who eventually dumped me and gave the reason th......more

Goodreads review by James on August 22, 2021

Book Review 4 of 5 stars to The Awakening by Kate Chopin. I read this book several years ago and wrote a paper on how society treated women during that period in literature. I cut and paste some from it below, as I think it offers more than a normal review on this one. Please keep in mind......more

Goodreads review by Whitney on November 06, 2015

WOW probably the most beautifully written book i've ever read, plus so much feminism it makes me weak. I adore this book and I am going to be buying my own copy soon so that i can reread and reread and reread it until I die.......more

Goodreads review by emma on October 17, 2024

assigned reading is good, actually. probably i never would have thought to pick up this novella from a million years ago unless i had once been made to read it, but not done so really, and ultimately felt a lasting low-level guilt that would motivate me to revisit it 6 years later. and that was an enj......more

Goodreads review by Jr on March 28, 2019

If a woman decides out of whim to shun the familial responsibilities of motherhood and wife and become a servant to her passing senses – she should be rebuked. If a man does it – he should be rebuked all the same. Any person regardless of gender, age, or social standing who demonstrate such irrespon......more

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