The Awakening

The Awakening, originally titled A Solitary Soul, is a novel by Kate Chopin, first published in 1899. Set in New Orleans and on the Louisiana Gulf Coast at the end of the 19th century, it centers on Edna Pontellier and her struggle to reconcile her increasingly unorthodox views on femininity and motherhood with the social attitudes of the time. It is one of the earliest American novels focusing on women's issues without condescension and is considered a landmark work of early feminism. The novel's blend of realistic narrative, social commentary, and psychological complexity makes it a precursor of American modernist literature; it prefigures works of authors like William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway.