The Awakening (Twelve-Point Series)

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Summary: A Guidebook To Giving Up
Review: My one and only problem with The Awakening is Edna's suicide. It seemed as though she had everything in her reach, and instead of staying strong, she "wussed out." I know that this is as close to literary blasphemy as one can come without being burned at the stake, but it's true. This didn't seem so much like a feminist handbook as a rant explaining why women shouldn't strike out on their own: they can't handle it, so they might as well just kill themselves before they make themselves look like idiots. I love the character of Edna.

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Summary: Good point, no morals.
Review: My 10th grade english teacher made me read this book this year, and in a way I thank him. I think The Awakening had a lot of good points to it. However, I didn't like the way Mrs. Pontellier went around flirting with any guy that walked her way. She could of kept the idea of being passionate a little more private. It was wrong to cheat on your husband back then and it still is. Some things never change. However, it was good that Chopin showed by the ending especially, how difficult it was to except and live with the idea that divorce was totaly not excepted. Over all I think Chopin wrote an excellent book, I just didn't like the idea that she was being so rude to her family, her husband, kids, and sister. That was wrong. Especially with what she did with the kids.

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Summary: A wonderous story full of imagery and philosophical residue
Review: I know that people either hate this book, or that they love this book. Evoking such strong feelings is of itself a sign of great literature. This book presents a story that pulls you into the world of 1899 New Orleans. It is one of the most enrapturing books that I have ever read. A great work that everyone should read!

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Summary: a study of depression
Review: This book follows a womans depression to its conclusion. It gives an inner portrait of her ambivalence to her relationships and to her roles in life. She isn't enthusiastic about mothering, about the art that she engages in or her purpose in the world. It is also a study of how the people around her distance themselves in the name of helping.

Rating:
Summary: Mixed feelings
Review: I think I would have empathized with Edna more had she fallen somewhat because of her awakening. She never really seemed to "mother" her children, or to be engaged very much in her relationship with her husband. Consequently, she never had any real position in her family to fall from. I liked the cynical way the author presented love, but Edna seemed like a bit of driftwood, going this way or that, never moored, not even at the beginning of the story.

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Summary: Edna is totally selfish
Review: I really did NOT like the book. Edna really ticked me off. She is a total player. She sleeps with other guys, ignores her kids and sends them to their grandparents, ignores her sister's wedding, etc, etc, etc. Chopin must've been smoking some serious stuff when she wrote because it went totally against the values of the day, and Edna is looked upon as a totally selfish person who is only looking to benefit herself. This may be called feminism, but it is total crap for the fact that not all feminists are inconsiderate sluts. She portrays Leonce as being an inconsiderate person, but in fact he is more loving to her than she is to him. He gives her what she wants, does what she asks, but she does not do what he asks. She gives a wrong view of both men and women.

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Summary: Interesting premise- poorly written
Review: Obviously the premise of this novel is good, or else it would not be a classic. However, I believe that the same concept could have been better and more captivatingly written. In the books that I have read earlier this term for English (Light in August, Sun Also Rises, Scarlet Letter and Ethan Frome) you got lost in the characters and engulfed by the story. Yet in this book you always feel as if you are on the outside looking in and you never feel any comraderie with the characters and that makes it all the more difficult to feel Edna's plight and what drives her to the end that it does.

Rating:
Summary: BOOOOOOOOOOOOOORING
Review: This was by far THE WORST book I have ever been forced to read. I'm not one for required reading, but I have read some good books in my English classes, "To Kill a Mockingbird" stands out as one of my favorites, but this book was utter torture!

Rating:
Summary: a unexpectedly powerful story hidden in a quiet plot
Review: I wasn't expecting to enjoy _The Awakening_ at all, to tell the truth, but I was surprised. I couldn't put it down. I had to read it for school, and the majority of my peers have been ranting about how "nothing happens at all!" They're absolutely right. Not very much happens. This book is not for those who crave an active and constantly moving plot. Instead, what is presented is a very quiet, beautiful tale of a woman who rediscovers passion only to find out how truly hard it is to fulfill that passion in the constraints of modern society.

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Summary: Power, passion, and pain, without a single vulgar word.
Review: The reader comments on this book illustrate a truth. Great literature rarely inspires a tepid response. This carefully drawn portrait of a young wife's awakening deserves comparison with Madame Bovary, but that, as well, was a sensational text, condemned by the readers of the day as inflammatory, condemned by modern readers as dull. The Awakening is an inspired and inspiring work. This book is full of symbolism and passion, and though the story is an eventually bleak one, it resonates with truth. This is a book about the pain of coming to life, and the power of inescapable maternal entanglement. Read it if you have an ear for beautiful language, a wise soul, and an active brain. If you prefer your truths to be merely pleasant, your endings to be tdily happy, and your grey matter to remain inert, leave The Awakening on the shelf.