The Awakening [Paperback]

'The voice of the sea is seductive; never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander for a spell in abysses of solitude'
When 'The Awakening' was first published in 1899, charges of sordidness and immorality seemed to consign it into obscurity and irreparably damage its author's reputation. But a century after her death, it is widely regarded as Kate Chopin's great achievement. Through careful, subtle changes of style, Chopin shows the transformation of Edna Pontellier, a young wife and mother, who - with tragic consequences - refuses to be caged by married and domestic life, and claims for herself moral and erotic freedom.

The Penguin English Library - collectable general readers' editions of the best fiction in English, from the eighteenth century to the end of the Second World War.

Katherine O'Flaherty (1850-1904), known by her married name Kate Chopin, was an American author of short stories and novels. In 1899, her second novel, The Awakening, was published to much outrage and harsh criticism based upon moral, rather than literary, standards.THE AWAKENING
 
I
 
A GREEN AND yellow parrot, which hung in a cage outside the door, kept repeating over and over:
 
“Allez vous-en! Allez vous-en! Sapristi! That's all right!”
 
He could speak a little Spanish, and also a language which nobody understood, unless it was the mocking-bird that hung on the other side of the door, whistling his fluty notes out upon the breeze with maddening persistence.
 
Mr. Pontellier, unable to read his newspaper with any degree of comfort, arose with an expression and an exclamation of disgust. He walked down the gallery and across the narrow “bridges” which connected the Lebrun clSÆ