Awakening: A Norton Critical Edition
Search in google:
This Second Edition of a perennial favorite in the Norton Critical Edition series represents an extensive revision of its predecessor.Publishers WeeklyChopin's (1850-1904) The Awakening , whose heroine rejects her husband and children as she indulges in solitude and in an adulterous infatuation, was embraced by the women's movement 70 years after its publication. Although they pale in comparison to the novel, these stories, which comprise Chopin's third and last short-fiction collection, serve to flesh out the Chopin oeuvre and deserve a place on women's studies syllabi. As in The Awakening , the author's social critiques here demythologize women, marriage, religion and family. A women escapes ``the incessant chatter'' of other females at a party and retires to the male domain of the smoking room, where she puffs on hashish and dreams of a love affair torn asunder. The perverse Mrs. Mallard revels in her newfound freedom when informed that her husband is a casualty of a train accident and dies of a heart attack when he shows up alive. Her fiance is wasted by illness and reeks death, and a repulsed Dorothea bolts; elsewhere, a monk is lured by the voice of a woman, a former intimate. And in a twist on the plot of The Awakening , a husband, plagued by suspicions of his late wife's infidelity, casts himself in the river. Toth wrote the biography Kate Chopin. (Jan.)
Cambridge Literature5Introduction6The Awakening9A Point at Issue162A Shameful Affair176The Story of an Hour183At the 'Cadian Ball186La Belle Zoraide197Desiree's Baby204The Storm211Who has written these stories and why?217Kate Chopin's life and times224What types of text are these stories?226How were they produced?232How do these stories present their subjects?237Who reads these stories and how do they interpret them?241Glossary248Further Reading255
