The Awakening and Selected Stories of Kate Chopin (Signet Classic) (Paperback)

by Kate Chopin (Author), Barbara H. Solomon (Contributor) "A GREEN and yellow parrot, which hung in a cage outside the door, kept repeating over and over: Allez vous-en!..." (more)
Key Phrases: Madame Ratignolle, Mademoiselle Reisz, Madame Lebrun (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
The Awakening tells of a wife who discovers the strength of her own sexuality and tries to wrench it from the hands of a patriarchal society- and her upper-class Cajun family.This and Chopin's other short stories are standard-setting masterpieces.

Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Signet Classics (April 1, 1976)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0451524489
• ISBN-13: 978-0451524485
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #256,057 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Far ahead of her time, April 10, 2004

By	J. Jacobs - See all my reviews

Stories include: (Wiser Than a god, A Point at Issue!, A Shameful Affair, Miss McEnders, At the 'Cadian Ball, Desiree's baby, Madame Celestin's Divorce, A Lady of Bayou St. John, La Belle Zoraide A Respectable Woman, The Story of an Hour, Regret, The Kiss, Athenaise, A Pair of Silk Stockings, The Storm, Charlie). Some of the short stories seem repetitive, but The Awakening is wonderful, especially considering when it was written and how much Chopin went through as a result of publishing this scandalous tale. She tells the story of a woman realizing her sexuality and the feminist ideas she conveys are far ahead of her time.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Edna Tries to Break Free, November 12, 2002

By	Miss Sophia "brightlight_00" (Georgia) - See all my reviews

Critics during the 1899 gave Kate Chopin's "The Awakening" bad reviews. They were shock at the novel because of the issues that Chopin wrote about. Chopin was devasted; she died never writing again. "The Awakening" was revived by feminist critics that knew the work was facinating, also beautifully written and compose. Now, high schools and college across America read "The Awakening".

The Awakening is about a woman named Edna Pontellier. Edna is unhappy in her life as a mother and wife. She starts to "awaken" from her conventional role of mother and wife to a woman that desires independence to become an individual. Edna does not love her husband nor she wants to be a mother to her two sons.

Edna falls in love with Robert Leburn; Robert goes away to Mexico because he wants to stay away from Edna. He knows that they both have feelings for each other, and he leaves because Edna's reputation will be destroyed if they have a love affair. After Robert leaves, she purchases a quaint little house on the corner; she decides that she needs space away from her wifely and motherly duties. While Robert is gone, Edna has an affair with womanizer, Alcee Abouron.

Robert comes back from Mexico; Edna is glad to see him and wants to rekindle the love that they discovered before he left. Edna is called by her friend, Adele, because she is having her baby.

Edna discovers that she cannot awaken fully from society conventions and restraints that are placed on her. She realizes if there was a way that Robert and her could be together, eventually, he would stop loving her. She realizes during her time society will not let her be the woman that she wants and needs to be.

"The Awakening" is about a woman that experiences and realizes that her life is complexed. As Edna struggles to find her identity, she has a wall against her, and it is called conventions.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars the tragedy of a free lover, June 26, 2006

By	Lyn Bann (North West Spain) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Awakening and Selected Stories of Kate Chopin (Enriched Classics (Pocket)) (Mass Market Paperback)

At the start of the novel, Mrs Pontellier is experiencing the awakening of her consciousness: she is beginning to recognize her relations as an individual to the world within and about her. Her husband, a man of forty, regards her as a valuable piece of personal property. And yet she is the sole "object" of his existence. Why does she seem so little interested in things which concern him? Does she not value his conversation? A vague anguish in Mrs Pontellier is a symptom of something dark developing within. Is this unfamiliar feeling the sign of an inner revolt against Fate? What is the force behind the creation and the dispelling of our moods?

As a young woman of twenty-eight, Edna Pontellier finds herself pondering on the nature of female wisdom. Is it about posing as a mother-as-angel in the home or is there something more? Can a new world be created in front of her, different from the one in which she had been living? Can a woman have access to a kind of wisdom belonging to the spirit, that only men had been previously vouchsafed? Edna is learning the pleasure of getting lost in the maze of inner contemplation. She wants to learn whether life has been the result of accident or the decree of Fate.

The moon, the sea water and Chopin seem to cast a mystic spell upon her soul. Exulting with these feelings, she aims to conquer her own self, a feat prohibited to women at the time. The winter after the summer holidays at Grand Isle, and after her "friend" Robert has gone to Mexico, Edna Pontellier has already given certain steps towards the delirium of selfhood she craves for: she will only do as she pleases, and what she pleases the most is art. Is she not growing a little unbalanced mentally? For her, art is ultimately related to the rights of women. But, does she possess the "absolute" gifts, those which are not acquired by one's effort?

Edna Pontellier considers that it is not to late for her to accomplish her fight for freedom and independence. She plans to move to a tiny house and live by herself. She has resolved never again to belong to anyone but herself. And yet when she does surrender it is not to love but to a momentary passion, perhaps as a consequence of her ennui: "the hopelessness which so often assailed her, which came upon her like an obsession, like something extraneous, independent of volition". Yet every step which she takes towards relieving herself from obligations adds to her strength and expansion as an individual. Can we be indifferent to the consequences of abandoning ourselves to Fate? "She was blindly following whatever impulse moved her, as if she had placed herself in alien hands for direction, and freed her soul of responsibility."