The Awakening and Selected Short Stories

The Awakening shocked turn-of-the-century readers with its forthright treatment of sex and suicide. Departing from literary convention Kate Chopin failed to condemn her heroine's desire for an affair with the son of a Louisiana resort owner whom she meets on vacation. The power of sensuality the delusion of ecstatic love and the solitude that accompanies the trappings of middle- and upper-class life are the themes of this now-classic novel. As Kaye Gibbons points out in her Introduction Chopin was writing American realism before most Americans could bear to hear that they were living it.