The Awakening, a novel of beginnings
(Book - Regular Print)

Includes bibliographical references (pages 133-141) and index.

Kate Chopin's The Awakening (1899) is a masterpiece of feminist philosophy, a novel whose pioneering vision and keen literary sensibility have established it as a landmark in the development of feminist awareness and made it required reading in courses worldwide. The Awakening tells the story of Edna Pontellier - a sensitive and artistic woman married to a New Orleans Creole - whose urgent quest for human freedom and truth is fulfilled by none of the options prescribed by traditional late-nineteenth-century society. The social and economic security her husband provides, motherhood to her two sons, even romantic pleasure and sexual passion are available to Edna - yet none addresses her essential need "to realize her position in the universe as a human being." As Joyce Dyer shows us in this expert introduction to Chopin's famous novel, Edna's inexorable awakening - to her needs and talents, to her right to pursue them, and finally to the impossibility of living with them in her time - can end only in tragedy. Dyer refuses to judge Edna, but rather, chooses to do what Edna asks of us all in her final scene: to understand her. Dyer begins with an eloquent analysis of the literary and cultural milieu of America at the turn of the nineteenth century, revealing Edna as both victim and symbol of her era. She brings us to the 1899 St. Louis Fair, whose bombastic celebration of both future progress and conservative traditions had fascinated Chopin. Caught between these opposing tides herself, Chopin created a heroine who is the true ancestor of the twentieth-century woman - more spiritual, Dyer shows us, than Flaubert's Emma Bovary; more openly sensual than the heroines of Chopin's contemporaries Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Sarah Orne Jewett; as open to new forces as Huxley, Darwin, and Spencer; yet still as thwarted in her own way as the souls championed by 1890s activists Susan B. Anthony and Mother Jones were in theirs. Reading the novel against this background, Dyer explores the specific events, characters, and themes of The Awakening, illuminating Edna's relationship with Mlle. Reisz, her flirtation with Robert, her affair with Alcee, the role of recurring characters from Chopin's earlier fiction, and the overwhelming importance of symbols like the Louisiana oaks, moonlight, and the sea. Dyer also explores the slowly awakening critical reception to Chopin's novel, tracing reactions from early outrage to contemporary acclaim.