The Awakening and Other Stories

To all outside appearances, Edna Pontellier is a respectable married woman living in New Orleans with her fond, indulgent husband and her two young sons. Beneath Edna’s smooth, graceful face, however, lurks a woman of passion, a woman who will not—or simply cannot—efface herself in the role that her husband expects of her: an angelic being who reveres him, dotes on their children, and obediently erases her individuality in service to the family’s happiness.

But one lazy summer vacation and...