Awakening - by Kate Chopin (Paperback)

About the Book

In the summer of her 28th year, Edna Pontellier and her children, along with the wives and families of other prospective businessmen, spend the summer in an idyllic coastal community away from their husbands and the sweltering heat of 1890s' New Orleans. Aware of deep yearnings that are unfulfilled by marriage and motherhood, Edna plunges into an illicit liaison that reawakens her long dormant desires, inflames her heart, and eventually blinds her to all else.

Book Synopsis

"She grew daring and reckless. Overestimating her strength. She wanted to swim far out. Where no woman had swum before."

Review Quotes

"Interesting and Timely . . . Chopin's oracular feminism and prophetic prophetic psychology almost outweigh her estimable literary talents.""--Newsweek""Chopin shares the boldness in technical experiment and moral relativism of her contemporaries in the 1890s . . . a writer of considerable sensibility and talent . . . in her stories she worked for breadth. In height, however, and depth, it is "The Awakening" that will serve as her passport in to our time and posterity.""The Times Literary Supplement" (London)"Kate Chopin was long before her time in dealing with sexual passion . . . and the personal emotions of women.""--The New York Review of Books