Cover: The Awakening, 2nd Edition by Kate Chopin; Edited by Nancy A. Walker

The Awakening

Second Edition ©2000 Kate Chopin; Edited by Nancy A. Walker

This revision of a widely adopted critical edition presents the 1969 Seyersted text of Kate Chopins novel along with critical essays that introduce students to The Awakening from the perspectives of feminism, gender (new essay), new historical, deconstructionist, and reader response criticism...
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ISBN:9780312195755

Cover: The Awakening, 2nd Edition by Kate Chopin; Edited by Nancy A. Walker

This revision of a widely adopted critical edition presents the 1969 Seyersted text of Kate Chopins novel along with critical essays that introduce students to The Awakening from the perspectives of feminism, gender (new essay), new historical, deconstructionist, and reader response criticism. An additional new essay demonstrates how various approaches can be combined. The text and essays are complemented by introductions to The Awakening and to the criticism, a glossary of critical terms, and (for the first time) contextual documents.

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Table of Contents

  About the Series
  About this Volume
    
PART I. THE AWAKENING: THE COMPLETE TEXT
    
  Introduction: Biographical and Historical Contexts
    
  The Complete Text [The 1969 Seyersted Edition]
    
  New Cultural Documents
    New Two Contemporary Reviews of The Awakening:
       From "Recent Novels" (The Nation 69, 3 August 1899, 96)
       From "Books of the Week" (Providence Sunday Journal, 4 June 1899, 15)
    New Two Principles in Recent American Fiction, James Lane Allen (The Altantic Monthly, October 1897)
    New Home Study for Young Ladies: Visiting Cards (from Colliers Cyclopedia of Commercial and Social Information and Treasury of Entertaining Knowledge, 1887)
    New The Dressing-Table
    New Advertisements from Womens Magazines
       Lablanche Face Powder (Ladies Home Journal, August 1899)
       Braided Wire Bristles and Forms (Ladies Home Journal, May 1899)
       Ferriss Good Sense Corset Waists: When Beauty Reigns (Harpers Magazine, January 1899)
       The Whitely Exerciser (Ladies Home Journal, December 1896)
    New Fashion Plates from Womens Magazines
       Plate No. 7 (Godeys Magazine, January 1897)
       Plate No. 6 (Godeys Magazine, March 1897)
       Plate No. 7 (Godeys Magazine, August 1897)
    New A People Who Live Amid Romance, Ruth McEnery Stuart, (Ladies Home Journal, December 1896)
    New The Artist and Marriage (The Atlantic Monthly, January 1899)
    New What It Means to Be a Wife, Helen Watterson Moody, (Ladies Home Journal, March 1899)
    New The True Meaning of Motherhood,Helen Watterson Moody, (Ladies Home Journal, May 1899)
    New What Women Find to Do all Day (Ladies Home Journal, April 1899)
    New The Evolution of Woman in the South, Walter Gregory, (Godeys Magazine, October 1897)
    
PART II. THE AWAKENING: A CASE STUDY IN CONTEMPORARY CRITICISM
    
  A Critical History of The Awakening
    
  Feminist Criticism and The Awakening
    What Is Feminist Criticism?
    Feminist Criticism: A Selected Bibliography
    A Feminist Perspective:
       Elaine Showalter, Tradition and the Female Talent: The Awakening as a Solitary Book
    
  Gender Criticism and The Awakening
    What Is Gender Criticism?
    Gender Criticism: A Selected Bibliography
    A Gender Perspective:
       New Elizabeth LeBlanc, The Metaphorical Lesbian: Edna Pontellier in The Awakening
    
  New Historicism and The Awakening
    What Is New Historicism?
    New Historicism: A Selected Bibliography
    A New Historicist Perspective:
       Margit Stange, Personal Property: Exchange Value and the Female Self in The Awakening
    
  Deconstruction and The Awakening
    What Is Deconstruction?
    Deconstruction: A Selected Bibliography
    A Deconstructionist Perspective:
       Patricia S. Yaeger, "A Language Which Nobody Understood": Emancipatory Strategies in The Awakening
    
  Reader-Response and The Awakening
    What Is Reader-Response Criticism?
    Reader-Response Criticism: A Selected Bibliography
    A Reader-Response Perspective:
       Paula A. Treichler, The Construction of Ambiguity in The Awakening: A Linguistic Analysis
    
  New Combining Critical Perspectives:
    Cynthia Griffin Wolff, Un-utterable Longing: The Discourse of Feminine Sexuality in Kate Chopins The Awakening
    
  Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms
  About the Contributors
Headshot of Kate Chopin

Kate Chopin

Headshot of Nancy A. Walker

Nancy A. Walker

Nancy A. Walker is a professor of English and former director of the womens studies program at Vanderbilt University. Previously she has taught at Stephens College, where she served as chair of the department of languages and literature from 1984 to 1989. A specialist in American women writers, she has published A Very Serious Thing: Womens Humor and American Culture (1988); Feminist Alternatives: Irony and Fantasy in the Contemporary Novel by Women (1990); and The Disobedient Writer: Women and Narrative Tradition (1995). She is editor of Redressing the Balance: American Womens Humor from the Colonies to the 1980s (1988); Communication: The Autobiography of Rachel Maddux (1991); and Kate Chopins The Awakening: A Case Study in Contemporary Criticism (Bedford Books, 1993).