The Awakening and Selected Short Fiction Read online

  Table of Contents

  FROM THE PAGES OF THE AWAKENING

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  KATE CHOPIN

  THE WORLD OF KATE CHOPIN AND THE AWAKENING

  Introduction

  THE AWAKENING

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  Selected Short Fiction

  Emancipation: A Life Fable

  A Shameful Affair

  One

  Two

  Three

  At the ‘Cadian Ball

  Désirée’s Baby

  A Gentleman of Bayou Têche

  A Respectable Woman

  The Story of an Hour

  Athénaïse

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  A Pair of Silk Stockings

  Elizabeth Stock’s One Story

  The Storm - A Sequel to “At the ‘Cadian Ball”

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  The Godmother

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  A Little Country Girl

  INSPIRED BY THE AWAKENING

  COMMENTS & QUESTIONS

  FOR FURTHER READING

  FROM THE PAGES OF THE AWAKENING

  But the beginning of things, of a world especially, is necessarily vague, tangled, chaotic, and exceedingly disturbing. How few of us ever emerge from such beginning! How many souls perish in its tumult!

  (page 17)

  There were days when she was happy without knowing why. She was happy to be alive and breathing, when her whole being seemed to be one with the sunlight, the color, the odors, the luxuriant warmth of some perfect Southern day. She liked then to wander alone into strange and unfamiliar places. She discovered many a sunny, sleepy corner, fashioned to dream in. And she found it good to dream and to be alone and unmolested.

  There were days when she was unhappy, she did not know why—when it did not seem worth while to be glad or sorry, to be alive or dead; when life appeared to her like a grotesque pandemonium and humanity like worms struggling blindly toward inevitable annihilation. She could not work on such a day, nor weave fancies to stir her pulses and warm her blood.

  (pages 67-68)

  She felt as if a mist had been lifted from her eyes, enabling her to look upon and comprehend the significance of life, that monster made up of beauty and brutality. But among the conflicting sensations which assailed her, there was neither shame nor remorse. There was a dull pang of regret because it was not the kiss of love which had inflamed her, because it was not love which had held this cup of life to her lips.

  (page 97)

  She went on and on. She remembered the night she swam far out, and recalled the terror that seized her at the fear of being unable to regain the shore. She did not look back now, but went on and on, thinking of the blue-grass meadow that she had traversed when a little child, believ ing that it had no beginning and no end.

  (page 133)

  NEW YORK

  Published by Barnes & Noble Books

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  New York, NY 10011

  www.barnesandnoble.com/classics

  The Awakening was first published in 1899.

  “Emancipation,” “Elizabeth Stock’s One Story,” “The Storm,” and “A Little Country Girl” are reprinted by permission of Louisiana State University Press from The Complete Works of Kate Chopin, edited by Per Seyersted.

  Copyright © 1997 by Louisiana State University Press.

  Originally published in mass market format in 2003 by Barnes & Noble Classics with new Introduction, Notes, Biography, Chronology, Inspired By, Comments & Questions, and For Further Reading. This trade paperback edition published in 2005.

  Introduction, Notes, and For Further Reading

  Copyright @ 2003 by Rachel Adams.

  Note on Kate Chopin, The World of Kate Chopin and The Awakening,

  Inspired by The Awakening, and Comments & Questions

  Copyright © 2003 by Barnes & Noble, Inc.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Barnes & Noble Classics and the Barnes & Noble Classics colophon are trademarks of Barnes & Noble, Inc.

  The Awakening and Selected Short Fiction

  ISBN 1-59308-113-8

  eISBN : 97-8-141-14337-6

  LC Control Number 2004115323

  Produced and published in conjunction with:

  Fine Creative Media, Inc.

  322 Eighth Avenue

  New York, NY 10001

  Michael J. Fine, President and Publisher

  Printed in the United States of America

  QM

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  FIRST PRINTING

  KATE CHOPIN

  KATE CHOPIN was born Catherine O‘Flaherty on February 8, 1850, in St. Louis, Missouri, to Thomas O’Flaherty, an Irish immigrant, and Eliza Faris O’Flaherty, a Creole (that is, a descendant of the original French settlers of Louisiana). Chopin’s sense of womanhood derived largely from the influences of her Creole great-grandmother and her own mother, who was left widowed in charge of a considerable estate at age twenty-seven. Chopin lived for many years in Louisiana following her marriage in 1870 to Oscar Chopin, with whom she had six children.

  As a student at the St. Louis Academy of the Sacred Heart, Chopin kept a “commonplace book,” a diary of her daily life, and wrote poetry. After the death of her husband in 1882, she became more serious about her writing; since she wrote about the people and culture of New Orleans, Chopin was first known as a Creole writer. She composed more than 100 short stories, which were compiled in ayou Folk (1894) and A Night in Acadie (1897).

  Chopin developed a reputation for flamboyance. A woman of independent thought, she belonged to a group of liberal intellectuals who wore eccentric clothing. She disliked social functions but attended them to fulfill her “commercial instinct.” Although she never considered herself a women’s suffragist or a feminist, she associated with women’s rights activists who were part of the St. Louis literary circle. During this period, Chopin’s stories focused on taboo subjects, such as interracial relationships, women’s infidelity, and sexualit
y. The most notable of these stories, ((“Désirée’s Baby”, was published in Vogue magazine in 1893.

  Chopin transcended her local status with the publication of The Awakening (1899). Influenced by the urbane stories of Guy de Maupassant, Chopin boldly questioned and defied the constraints on a woman’s freedom and individuality, but not without paying a price. Conservative literary critics relentlessly condemned the novel as immoral, and Chopin found it increasingly difficult to find a publisher. The Awakening was never banned, but the scandal surrounding it placed Chopin on the literary “blacklist” for years. It would take almost a century for The Awakening to receive due credit as an important work of art; it was revived as a feminist classic in the 1970s.

  Kate Chopin died of a cerebral hemorrhage at her St. Louis home on August 22, 1904. In 1992 Chopin’s missing manuscripts were discovered in an old warehouse in Worcester, Massachusetts. Known as the Rankin-Marhefka Fragments, these papers are now at the Missouri Historical Society in St. Louis.

  THE WORLD OF KATE CHOPIN AND THE AWAKENING

  1820- Fanny Wright publicly advocates women’s suffrage, the abolition

  1830 of slavery, birth control, and liberal divorce laws in her book Course of Popular Lectures and in the Free Enquirer, a radical journal on civil rights.

  1848 The Seneca Falls Convention for Women’s Rights takes place in Seneca Falls, New York.

  1850 Catherine (Kate) O‘Flaherty is born on February 8 in St. Louis.

  1855 In September Kate enrolls at the St. Louis Academy of the Sacred Heart, a boarding school. She becomes a friend of Kitty Garesché, a classmate who shares her love for reading and writing. On November 1, Kate’s father, Thomas, dies in a railroad accident. She leaves school for the next two years.

  1859 Charles Darwin publishes On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection.

  1861 On April 12 the American Civil War begins at Fort Sumter, South Carolina. The Garesché family is marginalized for their Confederate sympathies.

  1863 In January Kate’s great-grandmother and teacher, Victoire Verdon Charleville, dies. In February, George O’Flaherty, Kate’s half-brother and a Confederate soldier, dies from typhoid fever.

  1865 The Civil War ends. The Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution outlaws slavery.

  1866 Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton found the American Equal Rights Association to promote women’s suffrage.

  1867 Kate’s teachers at the Academy of the Sacred Heart assign her to keep a commonplace book, which becomes a diary of her intellectual and social life.

  1868 In June Kate graduates from the Academy. The Fourteenth Amendment grants African Americans equal protection of the law.

  1869 Kate writes “Emancipation: A Life Fable.” Anthony and Stanton form the National Woman Suffrage Association to advocate easier divorce and to end gender inequity in employment and pay. The American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA) is formed in Boston.

  1870 Kate marries Oscar Chopin in St. Louis; the couple spends the summer in Europe, then settles in New Orleans. Kate writes her last diary entry during her three-month honeymoon. The AWSA founds the Women’s Journal, edited by Lucy Stone. Women’s journals emerge across the nation, including The Woman Voter (New York City) and Western Woman Voter. The Fifteenth Amendment grants African-American males the right to vote.

  1871 On May 22, Kate Chopin’s first son, Jean Baptiste, is born in New Orleans. She spends the summer months at Grand Isle, a resort for wealthy Creole women, which she will later use as the setting of The Awakening.

  1873 Chopin’s brother Thomas dies in a buggy accident. The Comstock Law prohibits the use and prescription of contraceptives. Over the next six years Chopin’s sons Oscar, George, Frederick, and Felix and her daughter, Lelia, are born.

  1879 When Oscar’s cotton business nearly fails, the family moves to Cloutierville, in Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana, to the plantation of Oscar’s family, where Kate becomes acquainted with the Creole community.

  1882 In December Oscar dies of a severe malarial fever. The family physician, Frederick Kolbenheyer, suggests that Kate use writing as an outlet for her anger and depression.

  1883 Chopin embarks upon a year-long affair with Albert Sampite, a married man.

  1884 She moves back to St. Louis.

  1885 Chopin’s mother, Eliza, dies in June. Kate begins reading Guy de Maupassant, who has published Une Vie (1883), followed by Bel-Ami (1885). His works inspire her to write “life, not fiction.”

  1889 Chopin’s first poem, “If It Might Be,” is published in January in America, a political and literary journal. In April she brings Oscar’s body back from Cloutierville to St. Louis.

  1890 Chopin’s first novel, At Fault, is published at her expense and meets unfavorable reviews. She discovers the “amoral” stories of Guy de Maupassant, whose influence is evident in The Awakening. She becomes involved with the St. Louis literary and publishing circle and socializes with feminists. On December 1, Chopin is inaugurated into the Wednesday Club, an organization whose purpose is to “create and maintain an organized center of thought and action among the women of St. Louis.” Many of the club’s members also belong to the Woman Suffrage Association of Missouri. Chopin travels to Boston in search of a publisher for her “collection of Creole stories.” Her novel Young Dr. Gosse is rejected by publishers.

  1892 On April 4 Chopin resigns from the Wednesday Club after writing “Miss McEnders,” a short story satirizing the society women of St. Louis.

  1893 Chopin publishes ((Désirée’s Baby,“ one of her most notable short stories, in Vogue magazine. ”Mrs. Mobry’s Reason,“ a story hinting at venereal disease that had been rejected more than a dozen times, is accepted by the New Orleans Times-Democrat. New Zealand women win the right to vote.

  1894 In March Houghton Mifflin (New York) publishes Bayou Folk, the first collection of Chopin’s short stories.

  1896 Kate destroys the manuscript of Young Dr. Gosse.

  1897 Way and Williams (Chicago) publishes a second collection of stories, A Night In Acadie. Chopin begins work on The Awakening.

  1899 The Awakeningis published to mixed reviews, some of them scathing. The Wednesday Club invites Chopin to give a reading of the novel to 300 women.

  1900 Due to the notoriety of The Awakening. the publication of Chopin’s third collection of short stories, A Vocation and a Voice, is canceled by the publisher who had signed a contract to issue the volume. Chopin appears in Who’s Who in America.

  1904 On August 20 Chopin dies from a cerebral hemorrhage, two days after she visits the St. Louis World’s Fair.

  1916 Margaret Sanger opens the country’s first birth-control clinic in Brooklyn, New York. She is arrested and imprisoned for thirty days.

  1920 U.S. women win the right to vote when Congress passes the Nineteenth Amendment.

  1929 Father Daniel Rankin, a Marist priest, asks Lelia Chopin Hattersley for her mother’s manuscripts. When he receives the papers, Rankin places them “on loan” at the University of Pennsylvania library. Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own is published in England.

  1932 Rankin writes the first Chopin biography, Kate Chopin and Her Creole Stories, as his doctoral dissertation at the University of Pennsylvania. The book is later criticized by Chopin’s descendants for its inaccuracies.

  1955 Chopin’s manuscripts are transferred from the University of Pennsylvania library to the Missouri Historical Society.

  1960s-1970s Chopin’s works undergo a revival. The Awakening is hailed as a feminist classic.

  1991 A Vocation and a Voice is published.

  1992 Linda and Robert Marhefka discover Chopin’s manuscripts in an old warehouse in Worcester, Massachusetts. They turn out to be part of the body of work that Rankin had received from Lelia Chopin Hattersley in 1929. Today the Rankin-Marhefka Papers are located at the Missouri Historical Society in St. Louis.

  INTRODUCTION

  ON August 20, 1904, Kate Chopin spent the day at
the St. Louis World’s Fair. That evening she collapsed of a cerebral hemorrhage and died on August 22. An author with a flair for the coincidental, Chopin probably would have appreciated the ironic overlap between the end of her own life and the arrival of the world’s largest international exposition in her hometown.

  The greatest event in the city’s history, the fair brought some 20,000,000 visitors from around the world to commemorate the hundred-year anniversary of the Louisiana Purchase. Designed to showcase the accomplishments of American civilization, it comprised a miniature city of its own, with a vast expanse of white buildings, lagoons, and carefully landscaped vistas that covered 1,272 acres of Forest Park. Among its many attractions were the Department of Physical Culture, exhibits of the newest artistic, architectural, and technological innovations, the world’s largest Ferris wheel, and a presentation by Helen Keller and her teacher, Annie Sullivan. Visitors could drink iced tea and sample their first ice cream cone, a treat invented by one of the exposition’s concessionaires. Responsibility for representing the world’s cultures fell to the anthropological division, the most elaborate of any World’s Fair. Two of its exhibits were especially popular: the massive Philippine Reservation, which educated visitors about America’s newest colony, and the Pygmy Village populated with authentic African tribespeople. Photographs of the ethnographic attractions, in which primly costumed white ladies and gentlemen peer at scantily clad natives, are a reminder of the jarring encounters that took place in St. Louis. A complex portrait of modernity in the new century, the fair was the site of dizzying juxtapositions of the exotic and the familiar, the traditional and the innovative.