Product Description

The original CliffsNotes study guides offer expert commentary on major themes, plots, characters, literary devices, and historical background. The latest generation of titles in this series also features glossaries and visual elements that complement the classic, familiar format.

In CliffsNotes on The Awakening you experience one woman’s desire to find and live fully within her true self. Her devotion to that purpose causes friction with her friends and family, and also conflicts with the dominant values of her time.

Summaries and commentaries will help you understand events of the novel, as well as their meaning. You’ll also gain insight into the life and background of the author, Kate Chopin. Other features that help you study include

• Character analyses of major players
• A character map that graphically illustrates the relationships among the characters
• Critical essays
• A review section that tests your knowledge
• A Resource Center full of books, articles, films, and Internet sites

Classic literature or modern modern–day treasure — you′ll understand it all with expert information and insight from CliffsNotes study guides.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #32172 in Books
• Published on: 1994-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 128 pages

From the Back Cover
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About the Author
Maureen Kelly is a freelance writer and editor.

Customer Reviews

Ahead of its time; ahead of the pack
A century after the publication of Kate Chopin's novel, its themes -- a woman's awakening to the full potential of her sexual passion and her sense of being smothered by marriage and motherhood -- have become the staple ingredients of 'chick lit'. It is thus easy to overlook how revolutionary and shocking the events and ideas of this story must have seemed at the time. Then, the book was banned from public libraries in America; now, it is required reading in schools.

In many ways, both in theme and treatment, it resembles "Madame Bovary". Although Chopin lacks Flaubert's scope and breadth of vision, she reaches deeper into the soul of her heroine. Her style is restrained and elegant and some modern readers, accustomed to a pacier and more explicit treatment, may grow impatient at times. But there is beautiful writing here, embodying rich characterizations, strong evocations of time and place and thought-provoking moral ambiguity. An undoubted masterpiece.

Power, passion, and pain, without a single vulgar word.
The reader comments on this book illustrate a truth. Great literature rarely inspires a tepid response. This carefully drawn portrait of a young wife's awakening deserves comparison with Madame Bovary, but that, as well, was a sensational text, condemned by the readers of the day as inflammatory, condemned by modern readers as dull. The Awakening is an inspired and inspiring work. This book is full of symbolism and passion, and though the story is an eventually bleak one, it resonates with truth. This is a book about the pain of coming to life, and the power of inescapable maternal entanglement. Read it if you have an ear for beautiful language, a wise soul, and an active brain. If you prefer your truths to be merely pleasant, your endings to be tdily happy, and your grey matter to remain inert, leave The Awakening on the shelf.

My Favorite Book Ever!
This is my absolute favorite novel. I read it for the first time in high school, and have reread it several times since my initial engagement with Edna and her strength to decide not to be the woman society tells her she should be. Perhaps it is the writing and story that drew me in initially, but it is the message that keeps me going back to this book. Many say her suicide shows her weakness. I wholeheartedly disagree -- this is her strength, her decision that she cannot be someone she is not. Kate Chopin's thoughts and words are amazing -- a message many today need to appreciate, a message about women as strong individuals, not haphazard followers. The Awakening is incredible!