Upon publication of the story Chopin's writing was highly praised, but the public was outraged by the content and only one edition was printed. She is now considered to have been a forerunner of feminist authors of the 20th century. The Awakening (1899) appears in this collection of short stories. The Awakening explores one womans desire to find and live fully within her true self. A green and yellow parrot, which hung in a cage outside the door, kept repeating over and over: Allez vous-en Allez vous-en Sapristi That’s all right He could speak a little Spanish, and also a language which nobody understood, unless it was the mocking-bird that hung on the other side of the door, whistling his fluty notes out upon the breeze with. Her husband Lonce is often away on business, so she spends most of her time with a beautiful, shallow friend named Adle Ratignolle and a charming young man named Robert Lebrun. As Kaye Gibbons points out in her Introduction, Chopin "was writing American realism before most Americans could bear to hear that they were living it." Kate Chopin (born Katherine O'Flaherty on FebruAugust 22, 1904), was an American author of short stories and novels, mostly of a Louisiana Creole background. The story begins at Grand Isle, a ritzy vacation spot near New Orleans, where Edna Pontellier is summering with her husband and two children.
The power of sensuality, the delusion of ecstatic love, and the solitude that accompanies the trappings of middle- and upper-class life are the themes of this now-classic novel. Departing from literary convention, Kate Chopin failed to condemn her heroine's desire for an affair with the son of a Louisiana resort owner, whom she meets on vacation. The Awakening shocked turn-of-the-century readers with its forthright treatment of sex and suicide.