Growing Up With Literature

It is time for me to sit down and read all the materials I have collected from the library and internet. As I read about the author, Kate Chopin, I pity her for having born at a time when women are not given recognition and right to write as they wish. Women are oppressed and considered inferior than men in her time. When she published her novel “The Awakening” in 1899, her novels received unfavourable critics and in some cities was banned from library shelves. Even Chopin herself was cut by friends and refused membership in a local fine arts club. We could imagine how sad and depress she felt at that time.

It is not easy when a woman tries to come out of the social bondage on them. I admire Kate Chopin for her courage for writing boldly about the freedom of women.

“The Awakening” explores feminine consciousness. It is about a married woman, Edna, her self-assertion stifled in a conventional marriage, is awakened to the sensuous and erotic life. She rejects her socially prescribed role as a wife and mother but involved herself in painting and extra-marital affair. After I have read the novel, I feel that though what Edna did in her time is against the social stigma, but today it is acceptable.