Chopin, Kate - Emily Toth (essay date fall-winter 1976)

Emily Toth (essay date fall-winter 1976)

SOURCE: Toth, Emily. “Kate Chopin's The Awakening as Feminist Criticism.” Southern Studies 2, nos. 3-4 (fall-winter 1991): 231-41.

[In the following essay, originally published in 1976, Toth argues that The Awakening belongs to the didactic feminist tradition of women's literature.]

The title of this essay is bound to annoy some readers. The Awakening's not about “Women's Lib,” they may argue. It's a skillfully written novel, not a tract. It's a work of art, not a polemic. Or—as some critics have claimed—it's not really about women at all, but about the universal, existential human condition, loneliness and alienation.1

But Edna Pontellier is a woman, and what happens to her would not have happened to a man. The Awakening is a story of what happens when a woman does not accept her place in the home. The novel moves us because it illustrates...

[The entire page is 4630 words long]

Join eNotes

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

eNotes Pass