The Awakening

Beer, Janet. Kate Chopin, Edith Wharton and Charlotte Perkins Gilman: Studies in Short Fiction (new edition). New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.

This book both examines themes and use of genre in the short fiction of three American women writers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, including Kate Chopin, both separately and in conversation with each other.

Bloom, Harold, ed. Kate Chopin. New York: Chelsea House, 2007. Culley, Margo, ed. The Awakening. New York: W.W. Norton, 1994.

This essay collection curated by scholar Harold Bloom contains a broad range of essays on Chopin as a writer, her southern roots, contemporary reception, and interpretation of her works, including The Awakening.

Dyer, Joyce. The Awakening: A Novel of Beginnings. Twayne’s Masterwork Studies 130. New York: Twayne, 1993. Koloski, Bernard. Kate Chopin: A Study of the Short Fiction. New York: Twayne, 1996.

Scholar Joyce Dyer’s book on The Awakening explores the historical context in which Chopin wrote The Awakening.  She reads Edna Pontellier’s crisis through this lens, focusing on the tension between tradition and social progress.

Koloski, Bernard. Kate Chopin: A Study of the Short Fiction. New York: Twayne, 1996.

This book interprets Chopin’s short stories through the lens of Chopin’s identity as a bilingual and bicultural (creole and white Protestant) writer. It also includes some of Chopin’s own literary criticism and essays.

Martin, Wendy, ed. New Essays on The Awakening . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988. Seyersted, Per. Kate Chopin: A Critical Biography. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1969.

This guide to The Awakening first discusses the history of scholarship on the novel before offering a series of new essays and interpretations, covering questions of gender, genre, and character.

Seyersted, Per. Kate Chopin: A Critical Biography. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1969.

This biography of Chopin examines her life and her work, relying on letters, diary entries, and posthumously published stories, in order to explore Chopin as a writer focused on women’s autonomy and independence.

Toth, Emily. Unveiling Kate Chopin. Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 1999.

This biography of Chopin focuses on her life story, including her free-spirited romantic life, and how it played into the themes and characters she explores in her writing.