Awake me up before you go go

27/9/2022

Kate Chopin courted controversy when she wrote The Awakening

August saw the Tyneside Book Club tackle Kate Chopin's early feminist novel The Awakening.

Controversial at the time of publication, it is now seen as an early modernist text which explores the collision between the views of the main character Edna on motherhood and marriage, with the prevailing social values.

Bill Bream

29/9/2022 06:54:52 pm

Possibly of more value today as a precursor of some of Edith Wharton's work and interesting to compare this to the slightly later (?) House of Mirth, as well as The Yellow Wallpaper. I think the flaw in this novella perhaps was that it in focussing on the protagonists actions, her lack of agency or self-awareness meant that she (as a character) struggled to sustain interest over the length of the book, as the people around her her under-developed and there wasn't a huge amount about societal reactions (indeed, the husband was shown to be supporting her move and trusting nothing sinister was going on). The Wharton is much stronger on the interaction between the personal and political, and the Charlotte Perkins Gilman is shorter and more powerful.
Also interesting to compare it with Madame Bovary, another scandalous book of this type and also better, and longer - and set amongst a slightly different class structure. Long time since I've read the Flaubert but it does well with the protagonists internal life better, I think.
I had an edition with some of Chopin's short stories, though, and these were excellent .

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