The Awakening By Kate Chopin CONTEXT & INTRODUCTION

Kate Chopin: Life span: 1850-1904 Born in St. Louis, Missouri Married a Louisiana man & lived on his cotton plantation in New Orleans with their six children. They were happily married & he encouraged her independence. She and the children moved back to St. Louis. Her mother died 1 year after her return. Her obstetrician, Dr. Frederick Kolbenheyer (a progressive intellectual), introduced Chopin to new ideas and literature. Chopin began writing in her mid 30s. She became successful and opened her own literary salon and enjoyed considerably social status. She died from a brain hemorrhage 5 years after The Awakening was published

The Awakening: Kate Chopin's The Awakening is a frank look at a woman's life at the turn of the 19th century. Published in 1899, it tells the story of Edna Pontellier’s growing self-awareness, solitude, and sexual and artistic freedom within a conservative, upper-class New Orleans society. A master of craft, Chopin wrote a forceful novel about a woman who questioned not only her role in society, but the standards of society itself.

Reception: Chopin's novella shocked critics and audiences alike, who showed little sympathy for the author or her central protagonist, Edna Pontellier. Southern readers at the turn of the 19th century were uncomfortable with Edna’s unorthodox view on femininity and motherhood. The fact that Chopin herself was a successful single mother with a self-made literary and social life made the chilly reception of her novel more difficult in her hometown.

Historical & Literary Context: Sex and “The Woman Question”: The Awakening explores anxieties about the changing role of women in society, their sexual, romantic and legal relationships with men. Swimming plays a controversial role in the book. The Femme Fatale: A semi-monstrous creature fatally attractive to men and driven by her own desires. “The New Woman”: forthright, innocent and intelligent. Chopin contrasted these through subtle portraits of the female psyche struggling to move beyond constraints. Edna is viewed as property by her husband, as a romantic heroine by Robert Lebrun, and a budding femme fatale by Alcee Arobin. Local Colour, Creole Life, and Race: Demand for “regional/local colour” writing was high. French & Spanish Creoles had a distinct culture of their own. Chopin’s pro-confederate background is reflected in some of her works.

The Setting: The Awakening is set in Louisiana—in the resort town of Grand Isle, as well as New Orleans. Often, the characters slip into French phrases, or Chopin uses words that might be unfamiliar.

Creole Life: French Creole life in New Orleans had a distinct European feel. These French descendants were truly in a country of their own, deliberately separated socially, geographically, and linguistically from the newer “American” part of town. Represented as having a sense of “coming to an end” in The Awakening. The Awakening is considered a record of a lost community.

Main Characters: Refer to page 274-277 in your text.

Realism: REGIONALISM (or local colour) Realism is a literary movement in the 19th century that focused on reporting aspects of "common" life (common, of course, is a relative term). It is a concept related to industrial capitalism. In general, it means the use of the imagination to represent things as common sense supposes they are. Chopin is often regarded as a practitioner of regionalism or local colour. REGIONALISM (or local colour) refers to fiction or poetry that focuses on specific features – including characters, dialects, customs, history, and landscape – of a particular region.

Realism: While the specific attributes of realism as a literary style are often debated, a dedication to verisimilitude is the basic precept. Spread throughout the art, literature and theatre of this time. Peasants, workers, family life, etc. were common subjects.

Represented things ‘as they are’, as opposed to other styles, like Symbolism, that tend to show ideas through interpretation & representation It rejected the idealized classicism of academic art and the exotic themes of Romanticism.