The Awakening

The Awakening is a novel by Kate Chopin , first published in 1899 ( see 1899 in literature).Set in New Orleans and the southern Louisiana coast at the end of the nineteenth century , the plot centers on Edna Pontellier and her struggle to reconcile her increasingly unorthodox views on femininity and motherhood with the prevailing social attitudes of the turn-of-the-century American South.