The Awakening in Reading 1001

Mar 08, 2013 Kallie rated it really liked it

Shelves: fiction

This book is about an existential crisis for the main p.o.v. character. Readers need to keep in mind that Chopin wrote The Awakening before women had the right to vote. Lack of enfranchisement is not simply a political handicap, immediately remedied by gaining that right, but a reflection of the status of women in Chopin's time. Women appeared to (generally) have two levels of status, either poor and worked nearly to death, or infantilized, which Chopin portrays in the sensual treatment of Edna, ...more

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Mar 11, 2011 Kristel rated it liked it

Shelves: 1001-books, 1001-challenge

I wasn't so impressed that this is an awakening. To me, this is the age old story of girl marries, decides she's bored with it all, falls in love with someone she shouldn't be even considering and then destroying self and family. I don't see it as a feminist work either. A book about a woman being a victim of her emotion and then committing suicide, leaving her children without a mother, is not my idea of feminism. The only person in this book that was truly awakened was the old lady, Mademoisel ...more

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Mar 04, 2011 Sara rated it really liked it

Shelves: 1001-books

The Awakening by Kate Chopin
4 Stars
115 Pages

The daughter of a wealthy Kentucky farmer and wife of a wealthy New Orleans businessman, Edna Pontellier has an easy life, one that would bring most women nothing but happiness. And at first, Edna is quite content with her life. She sees nothing wrong with her husband treating her as nothing more than another of his prized possessions, and is happy, if a little bored. They spend their summers on Grand Isle in the company of other members of New Orleans The Awakening by Kate Chopin
4 Stars
115 Pages

The daughter of a wealthy Kentucky farmer and wife of a wealthy New Orleans businessman, Edna Pontellier has an easy life, one that would bring most women nothing but happiness. And at first, Edna is quite content with her life. She sees nothing wrong with her husband treating her as nothing more than another of his prized possessions, and is happy, if a little bored. They spend their summers on Grand Isle in the company of other members of New Orleans society. Their days are often spent at the beach and their nights at various parties. As the summer wanes, though, Edna becomes less and less content with her life, and more and more enamored with a young man who harmlessly, initially, showers her with attention. She begins to rebel against the notion that she has no identity separate from that of a wife and mother and struggles to embrace her individuality. This struggle continues following their return to New Orleans, and the disappearance of her young companion. By the end of the book, she has decided that she will no longer allow her life to be determined by anyone else, including her husband and her children.

This is often called an early feminist work, despite the authors strident disagreement. I'm not sure that I see it as espousing feminist ideals myself. Instead it expresses the notion of the individual. While Edna was a very selfish character, and her wants and desires failed to take into consideration the very real responsibilities she had towards her husband and children, it also depicted a struggle that many women experience as wives and mothers. It is all too easy to subsume yourself in your husband and your children, completely loosing your identity as an individual. Edna realizes that she does not want this - she wants to be a fully realized person and so she battles the expectations placed on her by society.

In this modern era, if a woman is dissatisfied with her home life and chooses to leave it, abandoning husband and child, it is accepted, though there is still often a great stigma and prejudice towards any woman who will not or cannot put her children above all else, especially self. However, in the era when this book was written it was shocking, even scandalous, for a woman to even consider placing her own desires above that of her husband or children. She was a slave to societal expectations, so for Kate Chopin to write about a woman doing just that, would have sent shock waves throughout both the literary world and the general public. Not surprisingly, this book all but ended her career. Today, this novel wouldn't even ruffle the feathers of the most repressed among us, but at the time it was considered quite avant garde and was a precursor and inspiration to many later feminist authors. ...more

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May 01, 2014 Ashley Husemoller rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: rory-gilmore-challenge, 1001-before-dying

This book was better than I was expecting. You have a woman who feels trapped, who feels less than. Add to that the societal obligations of the late 19th century. Who are you when you don't belong to yourself? 24/1,001 ...more

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