Chopin, Kate - Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock (essay date spring 2002)
Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock (essay date spring 2002)
SOURCE: Weinstock, Jeffrey Andrew. “In Possession of the Letter: Kate Chopin's ‘Her Letters’.” Studies in American Fiction 30, no. 1 (spring 2002): 45-62.
[In the following essay, Weinstock contrasts the treatment of female sexuality in Chopin's “Her Letters” and The Awakening.]
The scandal surrounding the publication of Kate Chopin's 1899 The Awakening tarnished its author's reputation and “effectively removed the novel from wide circulation and influence for fifty years following its publication.”1 The book was derided by Chopin's contemporaries as “trite and sordid,”2 and the behavior of its heroine, Edna Pontellier, was described by reviewers as “shocking,” “sickening,” and “selfish.”3 The second half of the twentieth century has witnessed a dramatic reappraisal of the text and of its main character, and a...
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