The Awakening & Other Short Stories (Annotated)

The Awakening shocked readers at the turn of the century with its candid portrayal of sex and suicide.

Kate Chopin defied literary convention by failing to condemn her protagonist's desire for an affair with the son of a Louisiana resort owner, whom she meets while on vacation.

Themes of this now-classic novel include the influence of sensuality, the delusion of ecstatic love, and the loneliness that comes with the trappings of middle- and upper-class life.

Chopin "was writing American realism before most Americans could bear to learn that they were living it," writes Kaye Gibbons in her introduction.