The Awakening (Wisehouse Classics - Original Authoritative Edition 1899) - Softcover

The Awakening, originally titled A Solitary Soul, is a novel by Kate Chopin, first published in 1899. Set in New Orleans and on the Louisiana Gulf coast at the end of the 19th century, the plot centers on Edna Pontellier and her struggle to reconcile her increasingly unorthodox views on femininity and motherhood with the prevailing social attitudes of the turn-of-the-century American South. It is one of the earliest American novels that focuses on women's issues without condescension. It is also widely seen as a landmark work of early feminism, generating a mixed reaction from contemporary readers and critics.

The novel's blend of realistic narrative, incisive social commentary, and psycho¬logical complexity makes The Awakening a precursor of American modernist literature; it prefigures the works of American novelists such as William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway and echoes the works of contemporaries such as Edith Wharton and Henry James. It can also be considered among the first Southern works in a tradition that would culminate with the modern master¬pieces of Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor, Eudora Welty, Katherine Anne Porter, and Tennessee Williams.

Kate Chopin was an American author whose works include two novels and nearly one hundred short stories. Chopin s close relationships with her female relativesher mother, grandmother, and great-grandmotherprovided inspiration for her strong female characters. Although some of her works were controversial at the time of publication, Chopin is now considered to have been ahead of her time and a precursor to the wave of feminist writing in the twentieth century. Chopin s most notable works include The Awakening, At Fault, and the short story Desiree s Baby, which explores race relations in antebellum Louisiana. Chopin died in 1904.