Novel
The Awakening
Kate Chopin · 1899
Synopsis
A twenty-eight-year-old woman spends the summer with her two sons at a guesthouse on Grand Isle, on the Louisiana coast, while her husband, a businessman, stays in town during the week. She becomes close to a solitary pianist and to the hostess's son, finally learns to swim and ventures out alone far from shore. Back home, she gives up her Tuesday receptions, takes up painting again, then leaves the marital home for a small house that she pays for with her inheritance, her winnings at the races and the sale of her drawings.
Context
The book appears in Chicago on 22 April 1899. After a few favourable reviews, most critics condemn it for its morality more than for its art: it is called morbid, and the word poison is used. The following year the publisher gives up the third collection of short stories it was to publish, and the author will produce no further long work. The text returns with the Norwegian academic Per Seyersted, who in 1969 publishes her complete works and a critical biography; the women's movement of the seventies then installs it among the classics. It has been brought to the screen twice.
Who it is for
A short novel in thirty-nine brief chapters, in plain language. The customs of the Louisiana Creoles, reception day included, shed light on each of the heroine's gestures.
Prizes and reception
Condemned for its morals on publication and then out of print for half a century, it is now among the American novels most often assigned to students.
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