The Awakening and Selected Stories (Penguin Classics)

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Short Stories
Review: "The Awakening and Selected Stories" is filled with wonderful classic narratives such as Chopin's famous "The Awakening," "Emancipation," and "Lilacs." My favorite short story from this book, however, was called "The Story of an Hour," in which a woman is presented with the news that her husband has passed away in a train accident. At first she mourns the loss of her former lover, but she soon realizes that she is better off without him; now she has the freedom to do whatever she pleases. Just as she realizes that she is joyful that she is no longer bound to her husband, the husband arrives home (he had not been on the train) and gives the woman a heart attack. (And if you think I've given the story away, I haven't -- there is a cruel irony in the ending; you'll need to read it to find out.) Anyway, I thought that "The Story of an Hour" was a fascinating tale that highlights the oppression of some marriages, but it is just one of the thirteen stories in this book that will thrill and charm you as you read this compilation of Kate Chopin's best works.

Rating:
Summary: Thought-provoking
Review: In "The Awakening", a woman rejects the drudgery of her life and decides to live selfishly, for once. Kate Chopin captivates her readers with a story of transformation and growth, and writes with clarity and ease. Perhaps most enjoyable about "The Awakening" and Kate Chopin's short stories is the vivid New Orleans setting. Chopin pays attention to the charms of Louisiana in this novel--Creole cooking and language, Southern black and French mannerisms of the time--not limiting herself by focusing on members of the elite. Definitely worth checking out!

Rating:
Summary: Supremely important rediscovery
Review: The author, Kate Chopin, began to write when she was age thirty six. She had a ten year productive career the introduction by Nina Baym discloses. She died at age fifty three. Her work went out of print to be revived in the early 1960's. She wrote two novels and close to one hundred stories following the death of her husband and her mother.

Women, including Kate Chopin, writing after the Civil War turned to regionalism. By 1893 railroads had wrought a tremendous change. Regional writing, as the introduction points out, is tourism of the imagination. The stories are short and skilfully done. Even the use of dialect for the Cajun and Creole speakers is not off-putting. The stories have a wonderful stripped down to the essence quality. One is reminded of Chekhov.

In THE AWAKENING it is noted that the summer colony staying at the Lebrun cottages are almost entirely Creole. An exception is Edna Pontellier. She came from old Presbyterian Kentucky stock. Even as a child Edna tended to live in her own world. She feels a sense a of exaltation when she learns to swim. She has children, a husband, and becomes infatuated with a young friend, Robert Lebrun. Later Robert leaves to go to Mexico. Returning to New Orleans, Edna spends time with the people she has met at Grand Isles. Her husband is caught up in his household furnishings. When she decides to leave to live by herself in a smaller house, he prudently closes their large marital house to avoid gossip. Her absolute disregard for her duties as a wife shocks her husband. Her doctor can find no trace of the morbid condition ascribed to her. Robert Lebrun returns. He shows reserve. Leonce her husband and her children are part of Edna's life. She yields to the water of the gulf.

Kate Chopin was a writer of major achievement. One regrets, as outlined in the introduction, that there were no literary works produced by her in the last five years of her life. She was discouraged by the critical and moralistic response to her masterpiece, THE AWAKENING.