Set in New Orleans and on the Louisiana Gulf coast at the end of the 19th century, the plot centers on Edna Pontellier and her struggle between her increasingly unorthodox views on femininity and motherhood with the prevailing social attitudes of the turn-of-the-century American South. Lawrence in its treatment of infidelity.” Although the theme of marital infidelity no longer shocks, few novels have plumbed the psychology of a woman involved in an illicit relationship with the perception, artistry, and honesty that Kate Chopin brought to The Awakening. The Awakening by Kate Chopin, first published in 1899. 1899, her text did not gain acceptance in the American literary canon until the late twentieth century, corresponding with the rise of feminist criticism as a.

Edmund Wilson characterized it as a work “quite uninhibited and beautifully written, which anticipates D. In The story of An Hour (1894), The Awakening (1899), the selected works under study, she contextualized her ideas of women self-expression, social and sexual. Audiences accustomed to the pieties of late Victorian romantic fiction were taken aback by Chopin’s daring portrayal of a woman trapped in a stifling marriage, who seeks and finds passionate physical love outside the confines of her domestic situation.Īside from its unusually frank treatment of a then-controversial subject, the novel is widely admired today for its literary qualities.

Synopsis: When first published in 1899, The Awakening shocked readers with its honest treatment of female marital infidelity.

Kate chopin the awakening 1899