# The Awakening, and Selected Short Stories

**Author:** Kate Chopin
**Tags:** Louisiana, Women, New Orleans (La.), Self-actualization (Psychology), Adultery
**Price:** Free
**Formats:** DOCX, EPUB, FB2, PDF, TXT
**Downloads:** 34
**Added:** 10.07.2026
**URL:** https://samolit.com/books/95822

## Description

Set on the sultry Louisiana coast at the close of the nineteenth century, this collection gathers Kate Chopin's most enduring fiction, anchored by her controversial masterwork, The Awakening. At its center is Edna Pontellier, a young wife and mother whose summer at Grand Isle stirs a restlessness she cannot name. As her friendship with a charming younger man deepens, Edna begins to question the roles of wife and mother that have defined her, drifting toward art, solitude, and a hunger for a self entirely her own. The novel's unflinching portrait of a woman's sexual and spiritual reckoning scandalized readers upon publication, yet it now stands as a landmark of American literature and early feminist writing.

Accompanying the novel are eight short stories, including Beyond the Bayou, Ma'ame Pelagie, Désirée's Baby, A Respectable Woman, The Kiss, A Pair of Silk Stockings, The Locket, and A Reflection. Together they showcase Chopin's piercing insight into Creole society, marriage, race, and the quiet rebellions of women confined by convention. Lyrical, daring, and psychologically acute, this volume reveals a writer far ahead of her time.