Chopin, Kate - Barbara C. Ewell (essay date 1988)

Barbara C. Ewell (essay date 1988)

SOURCE: Ewell, Barbara C. “The Awakening in a Course on Women in Literature.” In Approaches to Teaching Chopin's The Awakening, edited by Bernard Koloski, pp. 86-93. The Modern Language Association of America, 1988.

[In the following essay, Ewell explains her approach to teaching The Awakening.]

The Awakening may be the quintessential text for a course in women's studies. Greeted with polite dismay at its publication in 1899, revived and hailed as a lost classic sixty years later on the crest of the most recent women's movement, the novel offers a paradigmatic tale of a woman's abortive struggle toward selfhood in an oppressive, uncomprehending society. Who could ask for a more rousing exemplar of the fate of women who seek personal integrity in a world that reduces womanhood to role-playing? Or, for that matter, of the fate of women writers who dare to reveal the “life behind the...

[The entire page is 3843 words long]

Join eNotes

The above is a free excerpt. Get total access to this content with the:

eNotes Pass