In the summer of her twenty-eighth year, Edna Pontellier and her children spend the summer in Grand Isle, an idyllic coastal community on the Gulf of Mexico. Away from her husband and the sweltering heat of 1890s' New Orleans, Edna releases herself to her deepest yearnings, plunging into an illicit liaison that reawakens her long dormant desires, inflames her heart, and, eventually, blinds her toil else. Written nearly one hundred years ago, THE AWAKENING is the compelling story of an extraordinarily modem woman struggling against the constraints of marriage and motherhood, and slowly discovering the power of her own sexuality. Edna's search for her own individuality touches the hearts of women who've learned the value of freedom and happiness, and her story is now regarded as a classic in American fiction.

Interesting and timely...Chopin's oracular feminism and prophetic psychology almost outweighs her estimable literary talents." newsweek Chopin shares the boldness in technical experiment and moral relativism of her contemporaries in the 1890s. a writer of considerable sensibility and talent... in her stories she worked for breadth. in height, however, and depth, it is the awakening that will serve as her passport into our time and posterity."—the times literary supplement (London) Chopin was long before her time in dealing with sexual passion.. .and the personal emotions of women." -the new york review of books.