Kate Chopin - The Awakening

Exhaustion was pressing upon and overpowering her.

"Good-by—because I love you." He did not know; he did not understand. He would never understand. Perhaps Doctor Mandelet would have understood if she had seen him—but it was too late; the shore was far behind her, and her strength was gone.

She looked into the distance, and the old terror flamed up for an instant, then sank again. Edna heard her father's voice and her sister Margaret's. She heard the barking of an old dog that was chained to the sycamore tree. The spurs of the cavalry officer clanged as he walked across the porch. There was the hum of bees, and the musky odor of pinks filled the air.

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About the Author

Kate Chopinwas born in St. Louis in 1851. Of Creole-Irish descent, she married a Louisiana businessman and moved to New Orleans where she acquired an intimate knowledge of Cajun and Creole customs. After her husband's death in 1883, Chopin moved back to St. Louis with her six children. Her first books were charming "local color" sketches, drawing on her Louisiana years, but controversy surrounded the publication of her last book, The Awakening , in 1899. Its depiction of a woman's struggle for self-understanding and its frank discussion of female sexuality sent shock waves through the literary world. Chopin died only a few years later in 1904, unaware of the enormous impact her book would make on future readers.

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