Ready Reference Treatise: The Awakening

By Raja Sharma

“The Awakening” by Kate Chopin is considered to be her best work. It was first published in 1899.

The story is set in New Orleans and the Southern Louisiana coast at the end of the 19th century.

The story revolves around Edna Pontellier. The story depicts her struggle to reconcile her increasingly unorthodox views on femininity and motherhood with the prevailing social attitudes of the turn of the century South. The story very deeply explores the changing attitudes of the people with the changing times.

“The Awakening” very boldly focuses on women’s issues. It is one of the earliest American novels that talks about this topic. It is definitely a landmark work of early feminism.

“The Awakening” is said to be a precursor of American modernism because the story prefigures the works of American novelists like William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway. The novel also echoes the works of the contemporary writers like Edith Wharton and Henry James.

The narrative is highly realistic, and the social commentary is quite incisive. There is psychological complexity in the story. These things blend together perfectly in the novel.

“The Awakening” is said to be the source of inspiration for many contemporary and future novelists. The book still retains its appeal in the modern world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Raja Sharma
• Release date: Jan 16, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301767410

Raja Sharma

Raja Sharma is a retired college lecturer.He has taught English Literature to University students for more than two decades.His students are scattered all over the world, and it is noticeable that he is in contact with more than ninety thousand of his students.

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Ready Reference Treatise: The Awakening

Raja Sharma

Copyright

Raja Sharma

Copyright@2013 Raja Sharma

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved

Preface

Guide books or book notes are primarily written to make students understand the original text better, especially from all those angles which are often overlooked by a casual reader.

But, in the recent years it has been noticed that a very large majority of the students, without reading the original texts, rely on the guide books or notes prepared by their teachers or others. This is definitely not a healthy habit because students do pass their exams with the help of such notes; they miss so many things which haunt them in their later lives.

I would strongly advise all students to read the original text once again even if you have already read it, after reading this short treatise. You will see that the same story, after reading this treatise, will begin to give many new meanings to you.

All the best

Raja Sharma

Chapter One: About Kate Chopin

Chopin was born Katherine O'Flaherty on 8th February, 1850, in St. Louis, Missouri. She was one of the most widely read female American author of novels and short stories.

Kate Chopin is often regarded as a forerunner of feminist authors of the 20th century. Her short stories have been included in the course of study in various educational institutions.

Her short stories were initially published in the magazines like Atlantic Monthly, Vogues, The Century Magazine, and The Youth’s Companion, etc. between 1892 and 1895. The stories were for both children and adults.

Bayou Folk and A Night in Acadie are her two short story collections which were published in 1894 and 1897 respectively. Kate Chopin’s Desiree’s Baby is considered to be one of her best short stories. It is a story of miscegenation in antebellum Louisiana. It was published in the year 1893.

Likewise her short stories The Story of an Hour, The Storm, and The ‘Cadian Ball were highly admired. They first appeared in her first collection of short stories. These stories are set in New Orleans and Grand Isle.

Most of the characters in her stories happen to be the people from Louisiana. Many other stories written by Kate Chopin are set in Natchitoches in north central Louisiana.

She did not get the deserved recognition during her lifetime, but within a decade after her death, she began to be widely recognized as one of the leading writers of her time.

In the year 1915 Fred Lewis Pattee said in her praise, Some of Kate Chopin’s work is equal to the best that has been produced in France or even in America. She displayed what may be described as a native aptitude for narration amounting almost to genius.

Kate Chopin’s father, Mr. Thomas O’Flaherty, was a highly successful businessman. He had emigrated from Galway, Ireland.

Chopin’s mother, Eliza Faris, was a highly social woman. She was a very well connected member of the French community in St. Louis.

Kate Chopin’s maternal grandmother, Athenaise Charleville, was of French Canadian descent. It is said that some of Chopin’s ancestors were among the first European inhabitants of Dauphin Island, Alabama.

Kate Chopin was the third of five children. Unfortunately, her sisters died in infancy and her brothers, from her father’s first marriage, died in their early twenties. Having lost all her brothers and sisters, Kate Chopin was the only child who had lived past twenty five years of life.

Her father