The Awakening shocked turn-of-the-century readers and reviewers with its treatment of sex and suicide. In a departure from literary convention, Kate Chopin failed to condemn her heroine''s desire for an affair with the son of a Louisiana resort owner, whom she meets on vacation. The power of sensuality, the delusion of ecstatic love, and the solitude that accompanies the trappings of middle- and upper-class convention are themes of this now-classic novel.
The book was influenced by French writers ranging from Flaubert to Maupassant, and can be seen as a precursor of the impressionistic, mood-driven novels of Virginia Woolf and Djuna Barnes. Variously called "vulgar," "unhealthily introspective," and "morbid," the book was neglected for several decades, not least because it was written by a "regional" woman writer.
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Kate Chopin (1850-1904) forma parte del reducido grupo de escritoras que empezaron a dar voz propia a la mujer en la literatura moderna y cuya valía a menudo se ha visto oscurecida por la censura o el escándalo. Completan el volumen importantes relatos («En el baile acadiano», «Una mujer respetable», «Fedora», «El niño de Désirée», «La historia de una hora», «Lilas», «Athénaïse», «Un par de medias de seda», «La tormenta») que ofrecen una panorámica completa de las preocupaciones y el mundo de la autora.