Clay Jackson

The Awakening was destined for success. One month before Chopin's novel was published, Lucy Monroe reviewed The Awakening for the March 1899, issue of Book News. Monroe's review praises Chopin's work as a "remarkable novel" and applauds it as "subtle and a brilliant kind of art" (Toth 329). Monroe further depicts the novel as "so keen in its analysis of character, so subtle in its presentation of emotional effects that it seems to reveal life as well as represent it" (Toth 328). Monroe's was a glowing review indeed, and undoubtedly heightened the mounting anticipation with which Chopin, her colleagues, and her publisher eagerly awaited the release of The Awakening.

Most critics regarded the novel as vulgar, unwholesome, unholy, and a misappropriation of Chopin's exceptional literary talent. Many reviewers regarded the novel's aggrandizement of sexual impurity as immoral, and thus they condemned the novel's theme.

That Chopin was already a successful and popular writer further fueled the awkward consternation with which critics viewed The Awakening. In fact, because of Chopin's success with her earlier works, "Bayou Folk," "At Fault," and "A Night in Acadie," critics expected more of what Chopin was known for as a regionalist writer--realism and local color. They expected to read a novel rich in descriptive language, colorful characters, and the sights and sounds of Louisiana Creole life. Instead of local color, however, critics were shocked and dismayed at Edna Pontellier's behavior and considered Chopin's novel morbid and lacking literary value. In most cases, critics were at a loss to explain the reasons why an artist with Chopin's undisputed literary talent would contribute to what one reviewer called "the overworked field of sex fiction"

In Chopin's masterpiece, The Awakening, we encounter a husband beset by the "man-instinct of possession" and a woman who discovers that she needs to be a person as well as a wife and mother. The novel evoked outrage from critics, readers, and library censors primarily because Chopin allowed the protagonist, Edna Pontellier, to take control of her own life without criticizing her for doing so.

For many years, twentieth-century critics dismissed Chopin as a local color writer. But after her Complete Works became available, this viewpoint became untenable, and critics began attempting to place Chopin's works in their proper place in the canon of American literature. The influence of Hawthorne, Whitman, Henry James, and especially Maupassant on Chopin's work has been documented. Elements of romanticism, Transcendentalism, realism, and naturalism have been noted, thus placing Chopin squarely in the mainstream of nineteenth-century literary currents. Per Seyersted, in particular, shows that Chopin's works hold kinship with twentieth-century existentialism. And numerous