Kate Chopin, The Awakening

Val Scullion (Independent Scholar - Europe)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.2: American (US) Writing and Culture: The Nineteenth Century, 1783-1900.
Vol. editors: Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1899

Places

United States (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

Published in April 1899, Kate Chopin’s The Awakening met with a barrage of negative reviews. Chopin was typically castigated by the New Orleans Times-Democrat newspaper for “totally unjustifiable conduct”. The central character of the novel, Edna Pontellier, was vilified for infidelity and for selfishly neglecting her husband and children. Moral condemnation, with some slippage from character to author, was a common critical response. A positive review by Charles Deyo in the St Louis Post-Dispatch interpreted the novel as a …

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2182 words

Citation: Scullion, Val. "The Awakening". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 09 November 2004 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=1536, accessed 20 June 2025.]

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