A married woman. A summer at the Gulf. A slow, daring awakening that scandalized nineteenth-century America and still resonates today. Kate Chopin's The Awakening follows Edna Pontellier as she begins to question the roles of wife and mother that society insists should define her, moving from the genteel confines of Creole New Orleans to a startlingly honest confrontation with her own heart. This edition presents the complete, unabridged original text of the novel, along with a selection of Chopin's finest short stories, newly introduced and annotated for modern readers. An insightful introduction places the work in its literary and historical context, while reader's notes illuminate period details and themes. Here is the book as Chopin wrote it, in full, with no abridgment or modernization. Part of The Founding Texts Library.