The Awakening by Kate Chopin

 

Hello my lovely readers!

This was a re-read and it is as good as I remembered it. I first read this in high school for my AP English class, but that was the first and last time. When I was in college, we read a lot of Kate Chopin in my English 1101 course, but I can't believe it took me this long to re-read The Awakening. Let's get into it!

SYNOPSIS

I would give up the essential; I would give my money, I would give my life for my children; but I wouldn't give myself. I can't make it more clear; it's only something which I am beginning to comprehend, which is revealing itself to me.

Twenty-eight year old Edna Pontellier is a wife and mother spending the summer on Creole Isle with her husband and two young sons. While she's here, she meets Robert Lebron and the two take a liking to each other.

However, as feelings begin to grow deep, Robert leaves to Mexico for several months on a business trip. Her husband returns to New Orleans and the boys are send to their grandparents and Edna begins to experience her awakening. Edna starts to shun what's expected of her as a woman in society and live freely. 

Edna resists authority in her quest for freedom in a book that is now regarded as a landmark in American fiction.

MY THOUGHTS
I still love this book. When I read it as a teenager, I enjoyed it, but now as a married woman, this book is even more important to me.

It's amazing that this was written in 1899, because it captures what some women still go through today. I know it plagued author Kate Chopin all her life and I can see why. A woman having her own thoughts and sexual desires? Egad!

I'm a sucker for a realistic novel with a tragic and dark ending and this gave me exactly what I needed.

The Awakening is a classic I think I'll read in every decade of my life.