When first published in 1899, The Awakening
shocked readers with its honest treatment of female marital infidelity.
Audiences accustomed to the pieties of late Victorian romantic fiction
were taken aback by Chopin's daring portrayal of a woman trapped in a
stifling marriage, who seeks and finds passionate physical love outside
the confines of her domestic situation.
Aside from its unusually
frank treatment of a then-controversial subject, the novel is widely
admired today for its literary qualities. Edmund Wilson characterized it
as a work "quite uninhibited and beautifully written, which anticipates
D. H. Lawrence in its treatment of infidelity." Although the theme of
marital infidelity no longer shocks, few novels have plumbed the
psychology of a woman involved in an illicit relationship with the
perception, artistry, and honesty that Kate Chopin brought to The Awakening.
