The Awakening and Other Stories (Modern Library Classics) [Paperback]

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

Book Description

Series: Modern Library Classics | Publication Date: November 14, 2000

The Awakening shocked turn-of-the-century readers with its forthright treatment of sex and suicide. Departing 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 life are the themes of this now-classic novel. As Kaye Gibbons points out in her Introduction, Chopin "was writing American realism before most Americans could bear to hear that they were living it."

This Modern Library Paperback Classics edition includes selected stories from Chopin's Bayou Folk and A Night in Acadie.

Editorial Reviews

Review

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

From the Inside Flap

The Awakening shocked turn-of-the-century readers with its forthright treatment of sex and suicide. Departing 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 life are the themes of this now-classic novel. As Kaye Gibbons points out in her Introduction, Chopin "was writing American realism before most Americans could bear to hear that they were living it."

This Modern Library Paperback Classics edition includes selected stories from Chopin's Bayou Folk and A Night in Acadie.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 448 pages
• Publisher: Modern Library; 2000 Modern Library pbk. ed edition (November 14, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679783334
• ISBN-13: 978-0679783336
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #408,757 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #75 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Nonfiction > Women's Studies > General

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a counterpoint to the last review, May 8, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: The Awakening: And Other Stories (Oxford World's Classics) (Paperback)

I got turned on to KC in college through one story--The Storm--and a little background on her (she wrote ahead of her time, was published and then forgotten until the 1960's Feminist Movement dug her up again). She became one of those authors I lodge in the back of my head to investigate later. I happened upon this wonderful book at the book tent at New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Fest and grabbed it. The book gives a great introduction to her and her time. I was lucky enough to read The Awakening and some of her other short stories while staying at Grand Isle. She was and is a great writer. She wrote from a viewpoint that bucked the norms of her time---the late 1800's, she wrote of women who didnt fit the mold of mommy and wife. She wrote eloquently of an area, era, and culture that I love...New Orleans, Cajun Country, and Grand Isle amongst others. I dont write many reviews, but after reading the only other review for this book I felt a different opinion should be heard. She is a good read.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Worth reading (The Awakening), September 20, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Kate Chopin Short Stories (Rinehart Editions, 142) (Paperback)

This book is certainly not for the illiterate dime novel crowd. It is a story of one woman's struggle to find herself within the narrow confines of Victorian society. The situations and characters are well developed and some literacy in French is helpful but not required. If you read a bit about Kate Chopin the main character seems to be fairly autobiographical at least where rebellion from female conformity was concerned. The book is not a new idea, a person finding their wings and learning to fly. But the idea of a female doing this in Victorian society was brand new. The book was considered obscene and subversive at the time and that alone makes it worth reading.

2.0 out of 5 stars Euthanised Awakening, March 1, 2011

By 

Lorne L. Carignan (Michigan) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Awakening: And Other Stories (Oxford World's Classics) (Paperback)

This novel had such potential. Chopin had a good setup: a beautiful, lonely, neglected society wife finds herself bemused by latent, unrealized sexual desires; she is charmed by and attracted to a younger, single man who falls in love with her. But their love is forbidden by societal conventions. This is a classic moral theme in literature, and Chopin evokes the sexual conflict much more deftly and compassionately than, say, D.H. Lawrence who bludgeons the reader with a callous, brute of a suitor and a slut of an adulteress in "Lady Chatterley's Lover." Hence, the reader of "The Awakening" looks forward to an equally dexterous and subtle handling of the denouement. But Chopin does not deliver. Instead, of threading a needle and showing her characters making a bold choice concerning their passion, to either live in responsible and mature self-denial, courageously give rein to their passion in amorous recklessness, or find some perilous compromise between the two, she capitulates in the worst and most predictable way: the way of star-crossed lovers since the time of Shakespeare. A craven and hackneyed end to a what began and progressed as a promising exemplar of this species of literature.