Kate Chopin was an American author who wrote ahead of her time about themes of female identity, self-discovery, and revolt against social norms and conformity in her controversial 1899 novel The Awakening. The novel featured the character Edna Pontellier and her awakening to female sexuality and independence in a male-dominated society. Though Chopin sought to accurately depict lives of women in 19th century America, the novel was socially ostracized and Chopin died in 1904 with her work largely ignored until the feminist movement brought renewed attention to The Awakening.

1. Kate Chopin
A Feminist Before Her Time

2. Chopin’s Themes
• Identity • Self Discovery
• Revolt Against Conformity • Revolt Against Social Norms
• Sexuality • Motherhood

3. The Awakening
Characters
• Edna Pontellier
• Leonce Pontellier
• Robert Lebrun
• Madame Ratignolle
• Doctor Mandelet
• The Colonel (Edna’s Father)

4. www.KateChopin.org
“Her goal was not to change the world but to
describe it accurately, to show people the truth
about the lives of women and men in the
nineteenth-century America she knew.”

5. Katherine Thompson
“She was socially ostracized as a result of her
novel’s publication and died in 1904. It was only
until the feminist movement of the 1960’s
discovered Chopin’s writings, that The
Awakening was applauded as a masterpiece of
classical American Literature.”

6. Peter Ramos
“The ending of Kate Chopin's The Awakening
seems always to be read in the context of
gender inequality at the turn of the last century.
. . . . [Her aim is to] establish the extent to which
the patriarchal pressures of that period posed
severe obstacles for even the most privileged
women.”

7. Sean Heusten
“Even readers who choose to interpret the
novel's final passages as indicating Edna's death
by drowning must grant that the novel is
willfully unclear about her intent.”

8. Peggy Skaggs
Her critics’ “bitter denunciation of her fine
second novel, The Awakening, terminated her
creative period and virtually banished her best
work from critical consideration for half a
century.”