Kate Chopin wrote short stories and fiction about marriage, independence and women's limited choices in late nineteenth-century American society. The Awakening follows Edna Pontellier during a summer on Grand Isle and afterwards in New Orleans as she becomes increasingly dissatisfied with the roles expected of her as wife and mother. Chopin's shorter fiction often uses Louisiana settings, Creole communities and brief domestic situations to show conflicts over desire, money and social convention. Her prose is concise and controlled, with implication doing more work than lengthy explanation. Her writing fits American realism, early feminist fiction and Southern regional literature, with The Awakening the clearest starting point for her treatment of female autonomy. Read more Less
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