The Awakening (Critical Insights)

This volume presents a variety of new essays on Kate Chopin's The Awakening.

This classic novella, published in 1899, is considered a landmark work of early feminism. It appears in practically every anthology of American literature, and it is one of the most widely taught of all American novels. Although never technically banned, Chopin's work was strongly criticised for its depictions of female sexual desire and for featuring a protagonist who resisted social norms and traditional gender roles. This volume surveys previous criticism of the work but also offers a variety of new approaches from various critical perspectives. Essays relate the novel to such topics as race, humour, Chopin's life, impressionist painting, irony and close reading, tourism and landscapes, regionalism and naturalism, and folly and engendered discourse. Chopin's novel is compared to works by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Mark Twain, and several essays are intended to be highly accessible to students and of genuine value to teachers. Some essayists defend the novel against attacks on its artistic success and/or explain why it is worth reading at all. Contributors include such distinguished Chopin scholars as Robert Arner, Janet Beer, Thomas Bonner, Joyce Dyer, Anna Elfenbein, Bernard Koloski, Mary Papke, and Emily Toth. Rounding out the volume is a bibliography of critical sources for readers seeking to study this work in greater depth. //////////////////////////////////////On The awakening / Bernard Koloski -- Biography of Kate Chopin / Courtney Rottgering -- "Oh! To be able to paint in color rather than in words!" : Kate Chopin's The awakening and Impressionism / Julieann Veronica Ulin -- Reactions to the chief characters in Kate Chopin's The awakening : positive, negative, and miscellaneous / Stephen Paul Bray and Sarah Fredericks -- Surprises, complications, unexpected shifts, and ironic juxtapositions in Kate Chopin's The awakening ; Mark Twain, Kate Chopin, Huckleberry Finn, and The awakening ; Was The awakening banned or burned? What did Chopin think worth reading? (And other new archival evidence about Kate Chopin's life and writings) / Robert C. Evans -- A letter to students as they read Kate Chopin's The awakening / Jocye Dyer -- Defending The awakening : a response to Hugh J. Dawson ; In defense of Robert Lebrun in Kate Chopin's The awakening / Robert C. Evans -- Tourism and landscape in The awakening / Jeffrey Melton -- Kate Chopin's The awakening and her Louisiana fiction as travel literature / Thomas Bonner, Jr. -- Catching up with Kate Chopin : reading Chopin reading / Mary E. Papke -- In praise of folly : gendered discourse in The awakening / Robert D. Arner -- Humor in Chopin's The awakening / Robert C. Evans -- 'Casting aside that fictitious self' : The awakening as a cautionary tale / Peter J. Ramos -- 'The subtle quivering life' : reading The awakening through Kate Chopin / David Z. Wehner -- Kate Chopin's The awakening, authenticity and the artist / Janet Beer and Helena Goodwyn. //////////////////////////////////////////
Salem's Critical Insights series distils the best of both classic and current literary criticism of the world's most-studied literature. The series focuses on an individual author's entire body of work, on single works of literature or on a literary theme. Edited and written by some of academe's most distinguished literary scholars, Critical Insights provide authoritative, in-depth scholarship suitable for students and teachers alike.