"A Creole Bovary is this little novel of Miss Chopin's."
--Willa Cather
Publisher Web Site, December, 2003
Summary
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."
This Modern Library Paperback Classics edition includes selected stories from Chopin's Bayou Folk and A Night in
Acadie.
