Unfortunately, in my opinion a rather dull book about a very dull woman.On the island of Grand Isle in the Gulf of Mexico a number of wealthy New Orleans are spending their summer vacation away from the city.
The awakening to self-awareness of a rich New Orleans woman at the end of the nineteenth century. (At least she didn't kill herself in front of them, compare "The Horse Whisperer".) Read more Depriving her children of their mother is not a noble act, although they probably won't ever miss her, since she interacted with them as little as possible. To accept the task and then shirk it, as Edna did, does not become justified by the claim that she didn't understand herself until later. The use of dialect is not overly intrusive (compare "Uncle Tom's Cabin" and a host of grade-B writings from the period up through the 1950s).SPOILER ALERTThe self-indulgent protagonist seems never to have outgrown her youthful fantasies, and certainly made no effort to extend herself to understand her husband or care for her children (which she admitted).There have always been women with no desire to be encumbered by a family (her family removed her from a convent at some age, if I remember rightly). Style: Chopin writes smoothly and easily, with succulent descriptive passages. The sentiments exhibited are conventional romances, although with wit and some insight.The novel "The Awakening" might better be termed "The Abandonment." I suggest that it was considered unacceptable as much for for its denigration of the roles of wife and mother, as for the restrained sensuality and "coded" adultery, although I'm sure Eulalie Mackecknie Shinn would have disapproved of the book.
Substance: The short stories are entertaining, in the 19th century style, with interesting views of the Louisiana Creole milieu.
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