Rating: 
Summary: The Awakening...
Review: I had to write a report for honors english 11, so i bought this book.
I had to compare Zora's "Janie" from Eyes are watching god, to Awakening's "Edna"...
It was an OK book, mainly because im a guy, and i dont normally get sapped into this kind of stuff.
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summarization of book:
Woman gets tired of husband, seeks new men, finds love, or does she?
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Rating: 
Summary: diary of a mad housewife, circa 1900
Review: The Awakening is a short, well-written novel by Kate Chopin that delves into the "oh my G-d! I'm married! I have kids! Now how did THAT happen?!?!"-type of trauma many women probably feel from time to time. By today's standard the story isn't terribly original, and the subject matter has been better addressed in more current novels. But The Awakening was the first.While Kate Chopin handles the subject matter with sensitivity, her writing style is a bit ... prosaic. I can understand why other reviewers feel The Awakening is only useful as a sedative, which is unfortunate. Sticking with this (brief) novel through its mid-point is rewarding; the last half, while still slow paced, is quite interesting as our poor housewife tries to come to terms with her mid-life crisis. And The Awakening has a most surprising and moving conclusion. So The Awakening has aged rather well these past 100 years. And even a guy (like me) can appreciate the somewhat feminist subject matter. Worth a look.
Rating: 
Summary: I Love New Orleans
Review: I love New Orleans and I like Ms. Chopin writing. I know it is fiction, and I normally don't read fiction, but what a wonderful world she brings to readers, and how it used to be.
Rating: 
Summary: The "Awakening" that almost put me to sleep.
Review: In high school I was in the Honors English program and I had to read many books that usually stirred some emotion in me. This one stirred anger and disappointment. I had to read this one my sophomore year. Maybe I'm a freak. It's possible, but I don't know why this book is a classic. It drones on, Edna is a horrible role model for women everywhere, and she commits suicide at the end! What the hell? We read this 200 page pity party about a woman who has everything: a loving family, money, a nice house, friends... but wants more. Why? Because she is greedy! She has a nice comfy life. She is the victim of her own choices, not society! SHE got married. We're not in India, folks... she had a choice. Then she's dissatisfied with her nice life! If she had lived in poverty, I'd understand, but she's throwing a pity party over what or whom she cannot have (and probably should not have) and then she kills herself at the end. Boo-hoo. Maybe this is one of those books where you had to live the experience to enjoy it. Can you tell I'm not enjoying it?
Rating:
Summary: A woman before her time
Review: Kate was definitely not the "normal" 1800's woman. She was a thinker and master of her own destiny. At least that's what she wanted. Through her works she was able to live out her destiny. "Awakening" closed her off from the literary world at large, but it "awakened" her spirit and let it sore. I've enjoyed opening up the world of 1800s' female writers. Others I've enjoyed are Kathryn Bonner or Sherwood Bonner (her writing name) from Holly Springs, MS who in the 1800's married, had a child and left them to live in Boston and make her dreams come true. The story of her life is an interesting one and one you'd enjoy reading about. I've also found Louisa May Alcott's story of her life interesting as well. Her father was I guess one of the first to drop out of society. Louisa's tough spirit rode her through hard times being a woman. Anyway, female writers in the 1800's had a very hard time with acceptance and being unique was quite a stand to make. Kate was definitely one of the few to dare to be different. Hooray for Women who dare!
Rating:
Summary: A beautifully painful, real story: UPDATE
Review: I read The Awakening in college for the first time. It changed the way I looked at things, the way I judged people. It is a deeply moving book, fascinating and engulfing the reader with every line. Some may find it disturbing, but reality is just that. I lived Edna's experiences in real life: my own. I got married at far too young an age, met another man, divorced my husband, and left my three children (all under 7 years of age at the time) with her ex-husband (an wonderful, loving father), moved out of state, and barely spoke to my children for 7 years. I often considered suicide. The depth of sadness I reached is not easily related to anyone who hasn't felt it. So you see this story is just a reflection of a real possibility in life. This is the story of a woman who made those life choices which are so different from those made by most women in our society. Usually it's the men who zip their pants up and leave. It's just a slice of reality that some people accept and others don't. By the grace of God, I am now reunited via phone, letters, email, and yearly trips visiting with my three beautiful children, now 18, 16 and 14. I remarried and had a precious baby who is now almost 6 years old. Thank God that all my children and I can heal together now. Through all this, I can see and feel how real the character and emotional qualities and depth of Edna are in Chopin's book. Kate Chopin opened up the world of Edna Pontellier to us with such adeptness and grace, that I am in awe of her. Such amazing skill is required to portray and communicate something so real.
Rating:
Summary: A LANDMARK IN AMERICAN LITERATURE
Review: As an author with my first novel in its initial release, I have always been befuddled by the desire of some individuals to ban books. Kate Chopin's THE AWAKENING was not only banned. It was also suppressed for many years. I cannot understand why. THE AWAKENING is a beautifully written book dealing with a woman, Edna Pontellier, and her desire for emancipation. Edna is dissatisfied with her role in her society, and she takes positive steps to change it. While THE AWAKENING may have pushed the envelope for its time, that was no excuse to ban and suppress it. Ms. Chopin was a brilliant writer who found herself silenced because her work was too groundbreaking and brilliant. This novel deserves to be read by everyone--several times.
Rating:
Summary: Penetrates The Heart And Soul
Review: Edna Pontellier, can be found in us all. She experiences an awakening one Summer while on vacation. She crawls into her own skin for the first time and opens her eyes and ears to her heart and soul. We all as human beings can relate to this novel by the internal struggles Edna goes through. She falls in love with a man, which is acceptable but Edna is married and has children. Although a mother, Edna is one of the most beautiful and captivating women most have ever seen. The beauty in this novel lies within the diversity of characters, the beautiful, insightful, and penetrating writing, and most importantly, The character Edna Pontellier whom we all, no matter what sex, race, sexual orientation, or culture, can relate to. This novel is simply amazing. A quenching novel for your heart and soul.
Rating:
Summary: Readers...Awaken
Review: Though at one time I, too, would have rated "The Awakening" one of the worst reads of a lifetime--for its predictability in the context of a woman oppressed by Victorian society, and the most undeveloped, unsympathetic heroine for whom I was unable to muster the slightest emotional investment--a nagging, relentless undercurrent of something I couldn't quite identify festered long inside me regarding this novel until the story, and author, were at last redeemed upon my third reading, in a literature course that finally ended this internal struggle. Having much faith in Kate Chopin as a writer, I never felt 'the awakening' was about sex. This was too easy, even for a book set in Victorian Society. Further, it occurred to me that although women were limited beyond the domestic sphere in this era, suicide was not particular to the phenomenology of Victorian women (as it was, say, to Wall Street brokers at the onset of the Great Depression). "The Awakening," in title and content, is irony. Edna Pontellier's awakening is about who she perceives herself to be, and who she actually is. She dreams of passion and romance and embarks on a summer affair, yet she married Leonce simply to spite her parents, who don't like him. She moves out of the family home to live on her own--with the permission, and resources, of Leonce--hardly independent. She claims to crave intimacy, yet she fails horribly at every intimate relationship in her life: she is detached with her children, indifferent to her husband, leery of her artist friend, and can hardly stand another minute at the bedside of her warm, maternal friend, Mrs. Ratignolle, to assist her in childbirth. (Ratignolle was my favorite character of all, read after read, simply because she was so content with herself.) The Awakening? The surprise is on Edna, who is not the person she imagines herself to be. The irony? Edna Pontellier is never awakened to this, even at the bitter end. Feminists have adopted this book as their siren song...embarrassing at least! A feminist reading would, predictably, indict Victorian society as oppressive to women. Yawn...So that's new?!! Tell us something we don't know! I can tell you that concept wouldn't be enough to keep a book around for a hundred years. But the concept that has sustained this novel over a century's time is its irony. And it is superbly subtle. I believe Chopin deliberately set up Victorian society as her backdrop to cleverly mask this irony...'the awakening' is not something good (a daring sexual awakening in a dark era for women): it is something horrible that evolves and is apparent to everyone except the person experiencing it. This reading makes Edna's character worth hating! Chopin herself hated Edna Pontellier and called her a liar through her imagined conversation with her artist friend at the end of the novel. Chopin also cleverly tips the scales in Edna's favor in the first half of the novel, but a careful read reveals those scales weighed against her in the second half. I give the novel 5 stars because it took me three readings and help from a PhD lit professor to figure out this book. And I'm proud to say that I am, at last, awakened.
Rating: 
Summary: Awake Never Again, Vile Temptress
Review: To begin with, just let me say that I hated this book almost as much as any that I have ever read. My honors English class read it, and let me tell you that I was quite surprised to see all of the 4 and 5 star reviews that it has been given. Every person in our class of 30 absolutely hated it. Edna was the single most unsympathetic character that I have ever run across. Every moment that I spent reading this book was a moment of both agony and great hope that Edna would meet with a horrible end. I don't care what anybody thinks about individualism, freedom, or feminism (Even the resident feminazi in our class thought that Edna was an insufferable twit, and a terrible role model for feminists everywhere). In fact, Edna was the most ungrateful B**** that I have ever read about. She had next to no responsibilities. She had a nurse to take care of her children, a cook to do the cooking, and plenty of servants to do the chores. The only things that she had to do were be a loving wife and have tea with some of her husband's clients' wives once a week. She decided to blow off both of these duties in favor of- PAINTING! Yes, painting. Oh, and let's not forget having an affair with the town playboy, and trying to do the deed with dear old Robert, who turned out to be about the only honorable person in the book by leaving her. After this terrible "loss," Edna just plain loses it and decides to kill herself. After living a life of luxury with a husband that was good to her even when she was acting in the most embarrassing and dastardly ways, Edna decided that she was, well, unfulfilled, and went off to the sea to end her terrible, sad, meaningless, pathetic life. This was by no means the shocking surprise ending that some have called it. I (and the rest of my class) saw it coming a hundred pages away. All in all, this book was a blandly written, sluggish, depressing, and all around poor piece of "literature," that has somehow become famous. I think that calling The Awakening a classic is both a tragedy and a travesty.
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