Kate Chopin's The Awakening

Chopin, Kate O'Flaherty - shōˌpănˈ, 1851–1904, American author, b. St. Louis. Of Creole-Irish descent, she married (1870) a Louisiana businessman and lived with him in Natchitoches parish and New Orleans. In these places she acquired an intimate knowledge of Creole and Cajun life, upon which she was to draw in many of her stories. After her husband's death in Read More...

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Kate Chopin's The Awakening

1.

The Awakening, and Other Stories
by Kate Chopin, Pamela Knights. 410 pgs.

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Kate Chopin was one of the most individual and adventurous of nineteenth-century american writers, whose fiction explored new and often startling territory. When her most famous story, The Awakening, was first published in 1899, it stunned readers with its frank portrayal of the inner word of Edna Pontellier, and its daring criticisms of the limits of marriage and motherhood. The subtle beauty of her writing was contrasted with her unwomanly and sordid subject-matter: Edna's rejection of her domestic role, and her passionate quest for spiritual, sexual, and artistic freedom. From her first stories, Chopin was interested in independent characters who challenged convention. This selection, freshly edited from the first printing of each text, enables readers to follow her unfolding career as she experimented with a broad range of writing, from tales for children to decadent fin-de siecle sketches. The Awakening is set alongside thirty-two short stories, illustrating the spectrum of the fiction from her first published stories to her 1898 secret masterpiece, "The Storm."

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Title Page

The Awakening and Other Stories

Oxford World's Classics

Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Note on the Texts

Select Bibilography

A Chronology of Kate Chopin

The Awakening and Other Stories

Wiser Than a God

A Point at Issue!

The Maid of Saint Phillippe

Doctor Chevalier's Lie

Beyond the Bayou

Old Aunt Peggy

Ripe Figs

Miss McEnders

At the 'Cadian Ball

The Father of Désirée's Baby

Caline

A Matter of Prejudice

Azélie

A Lady of Bayou St. John

Tonie

A Gentleman of Bayou Teche

In Sabine

A Respectable Woman

The Dream of an Hour

Lilacs

Regret

The Kiss

Her Letters

Athénaïse

The Unexpected

Vagabonds

A Pair of Silk Stockings

An Egyptian Cigarette

Elizabeth Stock's One Story

The Storm A Sequel to "The'Cadian Ball"

Appendix: Louisiana Observed: Regional Writing and Kate Chopin's People and Languages

Explanatory Notes

Glossary
2.

A Routledge Literary Sourcebook on Kate Chopin's The Awakening
by Janet Beer, Elizabeth Nolan. 165 pgs.

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Damned upon publication for engaging with the taboo issues of female sexuality and infidelity, Kate Chopin's The Awakening (1899) is now hailed as a key early feminist text and an important work of American literature.This sourcebook combines accessible commentary with reprinted documents to provide the ideal introduction to this widely debated novel. The editors offer:* extensive coverage of the contexts to the work, including biographical information on Chopin and the social and historical backgrounds to her writing* an outline of the critical reception of the novel from the early reviews to contemporary debates, and extracts from influential essays* selected chapters of the original text, reproduced with extensive commentary on key issues and suggestions on links with contextual and critical materials* a guide to further reading, ideal for extended independent study.Providing all the tools for engaged, informed individual analysis of the text, this sourcebook will greatly enrich any reading of The Awakening . It is an essential starting point for students of American literature and women's writing, or for anyone fascinated by Chopin's controversial work.

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Title Page

Contents

Illustrations

Annotation and Footnotes

Acknowledgements

Introduction

1: Contexts

Contextual Overview

Further Reading

Chronology

Contemporary Documents

2: Interpretations

Critical History

Nineteenth-Century Responses

Modern Criticism

3: Key Passages

Introduction

Key Passages

4: Further Reading

Further Reading

Index
3.

Unveiling Kate Chopin (Chap. 12 "The Awakening")
by Emily Toth. 290 pgs.

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A vivid portrait of the author of The Awakening on the 100th anniversary of its publication.

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Title Page

Contents

Acknowledgments

Chronology of Kate Chopin's Life

Introduction

Chapter 1: Girls and Women

Chapter 2: The Spoils of War

Chapter 3: The Voice of A Young Woman

Chapter 4: Belle and Bride

Chapter 5: Walking New Orleans, Swimming at Grand Isle

Chapter 6: Cloutierville: The Talk of the Town

Chapter 7: St. Louis and at Fault

Chapter 8: A Professional Writer

Chapter 9: A Writer, Her Reviewers, and Her Markets

Chapter 10: A World of Writing and Friends

Chapter 11: Night, Love, War

Chapter 12: The Awakening

Chapter 13: Aftermath

Complete Works of Kate Chopin

Notes

Select Bibliography of Works Related to Kate Chopin

Index
4.

Depression and Chopin's 'The Awakening', in The Mississippi Quarterly
by Steven T. Ryan. 21 pgs.

Journal Article
5.

Un-Utterable Longing: The Discourse of Feminine Sexuality in 'The Awakening', in Studies in American Fiction
by Cynthia Griffin Wolff. 20 pgs.

Journal Article
6.

Poe and 'The Awakening', in The Mississippi Quarterly
by Rosemary F. Franklin. 10 pgs.

Journal Article
7.

Art Is an Unnatural Act: Mademoiselle Reisz in 'The Awakening', in The Mississippi Quarterly
by Kathryn Lee Seidel. 15 pgs.

Journal Article
8.

Revisionary Interventions into the Americanist Canon ("Maternal Discourse and the Romance of Self-Possession in Kate Chopin's The Awakening" begins on p. 158)
by Donald E. Pease. 344 pgs.

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Title Page

Contents

Preface

New Americanists: Revisionist Interventions Into the Canon

The Res Publica of Letters

The Desublimation of Romance

The Rationale for "The American Romance"

Scarcity, Subjectivity, and Emerson

Hearing Narrative Voices In Melville's Pierre

The Rhetorical Use and Abuse of Fiction: Eating Books in Late Nineteenth-Century America

Maternal Discourse and the Romance Of Self-Possession in Kate Chopin's the Awakening

The New Historicist Return of the Repressed Context

Realism, Ideology, and the Novel in America (1886-1896): Changing Perspectives in the Work Of Mark Twain, W. D. Howells, and Henry James

American Literature and the New Historicism: The Example of Frederick Douglass

"Ours by the Law of Nature": Romance And Independents on Mark Twain's River

Cataloging the Creatures of the Deep: " Billy Budd, Sailor" and the Rise of Sociology

Violence, Revolution, and the Cost of Freedom: John Brown and W. E. B. Dubois

Contributors

Index
9.

Kate Chopin's The Awakening: Screenplay as Interpretation
by Marilyn Hoder-Salmon. 188 pgs.

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Title Page

CONTENTS

PREFACE

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Backgrounds

EDNA A Screenplay of The Awakening

Edna a Screenplay of the Awakening

Scene 2. Present time: Spring. Edna comforts Adèle.

Scene 3. Reverie: Summer. The sewing lesson.

Scene 3. Reverie: Summer. The sewing lesson.

Scene 4. Present time: Spring. Edna and Adèle, the waiting.

Scene 3. Reverie: Summer. The sewing lesson.

Scene 3. Reverie: Summer. The sewing lesson.

Scene 3. Reverie: Summer. The sewing lesson.

Scene 3. Reverie: Summer. The sewing lesson.

Scene 3. Reverie: Summer. The sewing lesson.

Scene 3. Reverie: Summer. The sewing lesson.

Scene 3. Reverie: Summer. The sewing lesson.

Scene 3. Reverie: Summer. The sewing lesson.

Scene 3. Reverie: Summer. The sewing lesson.

Scene 3. Reverie: Summer. The sewing lesson.

Scene 3. Reverie: Summer. The sewing lesson.

Scene 3. Reverie: Summer. The sewing lesson.

Scene 3. Reverie: Summer. The sewing lesson.

Scene 3. Reverie: Summer. The sewing lesson.

Scene 3. Reverie: Summer. The sewing lesson.

Scene 3. Reverie: Summer. The sewing lesson.

Scene 3. Reverie: Summer. The sewing lesson.

Scene 3. Reverie: Summer. The sewing lesson.

Scene 3. Reverie: Summer. The sewing lesson.

Scene 3. Reverie: Summer. The sewing lesson.

Scene 3. Reverie: Summer. The sewing lesson.

ACT III

Scene 3. Reverie: Summer. The sewing lesson.

Scene 3. Reverie: Summer. The sewing lesson.

Scene 3. Reverie: Summer. The sewing lesson.

Scene 3. Reverie: Summer. The sewing lesson.

Scene 5. Reverie: Summer's end.

Scene 6. Past time: Winter. Edna and Léonce at dinner.

Scene 6. Past time: Winter. Edna and Léonce at dinner.

Scene 6. Past time: Winter. Edna and Léonce at dinner.

Scene 6. Past time: Winter. Edna and Léonce at dinner.

Scene 6. Past time: Winter. Edna and Léonce at dinner.

Scene 6. Past time: Winter. Edna and Léonce at dinner.

Interpretation

NOTES

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

INDEX
10.

Women in Literature: Reading through the Lens of Gender ("Female Resistance to Gender Conformity in Kate Chopin's The Awakening" begins on p. 22)
by Jerilyn Fisher, Ellen S. Silber. 358 pgs.

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This unique reference offers alternate approaches to reading traditional literature, as well as suggestions for expanding the canon to include more gender sensitive works. Covering 96 of the most frequently taught works of fiction, essays offer teachers, librarians, and students fresh insights into the female perspective in literature.

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Contents

Foreword

Preface

Introduction

Women’s Roles and Influence in Mark Twain’s the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885)

The War against the Feminine: Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front (1929)

Doctor She! Helena and Sisterhood in William Shakespeare’s All’s Well That Ends Well (ca. 1602–1603)

For Further Reading

Mother, Wife, Fallen Woman: Marital Choice in Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina (1877)

Young Lady or slut: Identity and Voice in Jamaica Kincaid’s Annie John (1983)

Righteous Activist or Confrontational Madwoman: Sophocles’ Antigone (441 B.C.E.)

Work Cited

Female Resistance to Gender Conformity in Kate Chopin’s the Awakening (1899)

For Further Reading

Mothers and Children in Barbara Kingsolver’s the Bean Trees (1988)

William Faulkner’s Male Myth: the Bear (1942)

More Than Skin Deep: Robin Mckinley’s Beauty: a Retelling of the Story of Beauty and the Beast (1978)

Sylvia Plath’s the Bell Jar: Trapped by the Feminine Mystique (1963)

Toni Morrison’s Beloved (1987): Maternal Possibilities, Sisterly Bonding

Richard Wright’s Black Boy (1945, 1991) and Black Women

Works Cited

Culture, Tradition, Family: Gender Roles in Rudolfo Anaya’s Bless Me, Ultima (1972)

Girls into Women: Culture, Nature, and Self-Loathing in Toni Morrison’s the Bluest Eye (1970)

Founding Women’s History: Christine de Pizan Writes the Book of the City of Ladies (1405)

Works Cited

A Dystopic Vision of Gender in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (1932)

An Immigrant Girl’s Quest for the American Dream in Anzia Yezierska’s Bread Givers (1925)

For Further Reading

As My Mother’s Daughter: Breath, Eyes, Memory by Edwidge Danticat (1994)

Non-Conformists and Traditionalists: Buchi Emecheta’s the Bride Price (1976)

The Symbolic Annihilation of Women in Jack London’s the Call of the Wild (1904)

Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales: Gender in the Middle Ages (ca. 1388–1400)

Sex, Violence, and Peter Pan: J.D.Salinger’s the Catcher in the Eye (1951)

Paths to Liberation in Alice Walker’s the Color Purple (1982)

The Women in Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment (1866)

Witch-Hunting, Thwarted Desire, and Girl Power: Arthur Miller’s the Crucible (1953)

A Nice Girl Ought to Know! Henry James’ Daisy Miller (1878)

Redefining Female Absence in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman (1949)

Black and White Womanhood in Sherley Anne Williams’ Dessa Rose: Mammies, Ladies, Rebels (1986)

Work Cited

Anne Frank’s the Diary of a Young Girl: Writing a Self—the Female Adolescent Voice (1952)

For Further Reading

The Slammed Door That Still Reverberates: Henrik Ibsen’s a Doll’s House (1879)

Frozen Lives: Edith Wharton’s Ethan Frome (1911)

Catherine Barkley: Ernest Hemingway’s a Farewell to Arms (1929)

The Invisible Black Female Artist in Alice Childress’ Florence (1950)

For Further Reading

Daring Creation: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818, Revised 1831)

Shattered Rainbows in Translucent Glass: Tennessee Williams’ the Glass Menagerie (1945)

What It Means to Be a Lady: Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind (1936)

Works Cited

Patriarchy and Property: Women in Pearl S.Buck’s the Good Earth (1931)

No Expectations at All: Women in Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations (1861)

Works Cited

Beautiful Fools and Hulking Brutes: F.Scott Fitzgerald’s the Great Gatsby (1925)

Reading between the Lines: Connecting with Gertrude and Ophelia in William Shakespeare’s Hamlet (ca. 1600)

Freedom Reconsidered: Margaret Atwood’s the Handmaid’s Tale (1985)

Work Cited

When Women Shape the World: Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Herland (1915)

Works Cited

Girls and Women in Sandra Cisneros’ the House on Mango Street (1984)

Living in a Borderland: Cultural Expectations of Gender in Julia Alvarez’ How the García Girls Lost Their Accents (1991)

A Song of Freedom: Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

Good Mother, Bad Mother in Joanne Greenberg’s I Never Promised You a Rose Garden (1964)

Bobbie Ann Mason’s in Country (1985): a Girl’s Quest for Her Father and Herself

The Invisible Women in Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man (1952)

Works Cited

Be True to Yourself: Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre (1847)

Thinking Different in Amy Tan’s the Joy Luck Club (1989)

Gender Bending: Ursula le Guin’s the Left Hand of Darkness (1969)

What a Teacher Learns: Ernest J.Games’ a Lesson before Dying (1993)

Works Cited

The Foreignness of Femininity in Joseph Conrad’s Lord Jim (1900)

Boys’ Club—no Girls Allowed: Absence as Presence in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies (1954)

Unnatural: Women in William Shakespeare’s Macbeth (ca. 1606)

Emma Rouault Bovary: Gendered Reflections in Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert (1857)

(Re)surfacing Main Street (1920) by Sinclair Lewis

Critiquing “the We of Me”: Gender Roles in Carson Mccullers’ the Member of the Wedding (1946)

Works Cited

Beauty and Gender in Alix Kates Shulman’s Memoirs of an Ex-Prom Queen (1972)

Where No Role Fits: Maggie’s Predicament in George Eliot’s the Mill on the Floss (1860)

For Further Reading

Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick: Epic Tale of Male Destruction (1851)

For Further Reading

Images of Possibility: Gender Identity in Willa Cather’s My Àntonia (1918)

Work Cited

The Good Woman: Kamala Markandaya’s Nectar in a Sieve (1954)

Boyhood Unraveled: Elie Wiesel’s Night (1960)

Sexuality as Rebellion in George Orwell’s 1984 (1949)

Homer’s Odyssey: “the Iliad’s Wife” (ca. 700 B.C.E.)

Jocasta and Her Daughters: Women in Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex (ca. 430 B.C.E.)

Women Stripped of Humanity: John Steinbeck’s of Mice and Men (1937)

Role Traps in Ken Kesey’s One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1962)

Under the Burden of Yellow Peril: Race, Class, and Gender in Yoshiko Uchida’s Picture Bride (1987)

For Further Reading

Woman and Art in James Joyce’s a Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916)

Truths Universally Acknowledged: Stereotypes of Women in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice (1813)

Undue Influence in Muriel Spark’s the Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1961)

Exploring the Gender Puzzle of George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion (1912)

Work Cited

Seasoned with Quiet Strength: Black Womanhood in Lorraine Hansberry’s a Raisin in the Sun (1959)

Heroism against the Odds: William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet (ca. 1599)

Molly Bolts and Lifelines: Rita Mae Brown’s Ruby Fruit Jungle (1973)

A as Hester’s Autonomy in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s the Scarlet Letter (1850)

Female Freedom in Other Places and Inner Spaces: Suzanne Fisher Staples’ Shabanu: Daughter of the Wind (1989)

For Further Reading

Gender in Silas Marner by George Eliot (1861)

Empowerment through Writing in Mariama Bâ’s So Long a Letter (1979)

Wearing “her Favour in the Battle”: the “go-Between” in D.H. Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers (1913)

Riding Tennessee Williams’ a Streetcar Named Desire (1947)

Agent or Victim: Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’urbervilles (1891)

An African-American Woman’s Journey of Self-Discovery in Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937)

Fragmenting Culture, Fragmenting Lives: Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart (1959)

Just a Lady: Gender and Power in Harper Lee’s to Kill a Mockingbird (1960)

Women Righting Wrongs: Morality and Justice in Susan Glaspell’s Trifles (1916)

For Further Reading

For Such as We Are Made Of, Such We Be: the Construction of Gender in William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, or What You Will (first Performed 1602)

Work Cited

The Power of Mothers in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852)

A Chinese-American Woman Warrior Comes of Age: Maxine Hong Kingston’s the Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood among Ghosts (1976)

The Will to Survive in Gloria Naylor’s the Women of Brewster Place (1982)

Procrustean Bed: Gender Roles in Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights (1847)

Negotiating Tight Spaces: Women in Michael Dorris’ a Yellow Raft in Blue Water (1988)

Index of Literary Works by Author

Subject Index

About the Editors and Contributors
11.

The Awakening's Signifying "Mexicanist" Presence, in Studies in American Fiction
by Phillip Barrish. 13 pgs.

Journal Article
12.

Dangerous Spending Habits: The Epistemology of Edna Pontellier's Extravagant Expenditures in The Awakening, in The Mississippi Quarterly
by Dianne Bunch. 19 pgs.

Journal Article
13.

Fashioning the Hybrid Woman in Kate Chopin's The Awakening, in Mosaic (Winnipeg)
by Carolyn L. Mathews. 23 pgs.

Journal Article
14.

Chopin's The Awakening, in The Explicator
by Thorunn Ruga McCoy. 2 pgs.

Journal Article

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