The Awakening (Magill Book Reviews)
At a glance:
- Author: Kate Chopin
- First Published: 1899
- Type of Work: Realistic Novel
- Genres: Long fiction, Domestic realism
- Subjects: Self-discovery, Love or romance, Sex or sexuality, Suicide, South or Southerners, Gender roles, Nineteenth century, Marriage, Obsession, Creoles, Women’s issues, Adultery, New Orleans, Ethics, Gossip
- Locales: New Orleans, LA
The author skillfully evokes the atmosphere of New Orleans and of a fashionable island resort fifty miles south of the city in the late nineteenth century. As wife of a prosperous Creole businessman and mother of two sons, Edna Pontellier has been living the comfortable but idle life typical of her class.
A series of events--the circumspect attentions of a young bachelor named Robert Lebrun, her conversations with a physically ugly but talented woman musician, and her encounter with an enlightened and sympathetic doctor--draw Edna away from a conventional life to one that is...
[The entire page is 829 words long]
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