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It is no big shocker which The Awakening garnered some genuinely abysmal reviews when it was initially released. You're a dude, because you have a) a job as b) a literary writer. You're sure of a couple of concrete truths: that guys like yourself are the superior sex, which girls are too malleable and weak-minded to be independent, so which becoming a wife and mother is the #1 fantasy of 100 percent of the fairer gender, which dudes are cursed with sexual appetites, which ladies have only chaste love on the brain.

These are the facts--at least as far as youpersonally, or some of the bros on your literary critic circle, are concerned.

And then you start The Awakening, a book that challenges all of this. Kate Chopin's novel follows Edna Pontellier's transformation from a obedient, traditional wife and mother into a self-realized, sexually liberated and independent girl. And what's more, Edna likes this transformation. She starts neglecting her family duties and enjoys it. She admits that her universe doesn't revolve around her kids and enjoys it. She moves from the home she shares with her husband and enjoys it. She has steamy sexual intercourse with a guy she is not married to--or perhaps in love with--and enjoys it.

In the event that you had been studying this book when it first came out in 1899, you would have picked your jaw up off the ground, loosened your starched collar to prevent fainting, paced the area until your blood pressure returned to normal. And then you would have picked up your pencil and composed a really scathing review.

Fortunately for us--if not the critics that gave The Awakening the 19th Century equivalent of a one-star score on Goodreads--times have changed. Gone are corsets, voting restrictions, obligatory "honor thy husband" marriage vows, and legislation condemning divorce. Gone are strict societal views about girls enjoying painting, music, swimming and--yes--using a rockin' good time in the sack with whomever they please. And gone is the thought that The Awakening is a bad novel.

The Awakening was "re-discovered" from the early 1970's (right around Second Wave feminism came on the scene) and is now renowned as giving up amazing insights into the mores of late 19th Century society. It is taught in classrooms Throughout the Nation, in American Lit and Gender Studies classes equally.

And, more to the point, it is appreciated by girls who may share something or 2 with Edna Pontellier, be it a joy of swimming, a realization that they're not a "mother-woman," or even only an appreciation for smooching a good-looking relationship.

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