52 WEEKS::The Awakening

She was becoming herself and daily casting aside that fictitious self which we assume like a garment with which to appear before the world.

~ Kate Chopin, The Awakening

Audiences accustomed to the pieties of late Victorian romantic fiction were taken aback by Chopin's daring portrayal of a woman trapped in a stifling marriage, who seeks and finds passionate physical love outside the straitened confines of her domestic situation.  Aside from its unusually frank treatment of a controversial subject, few novels have plumbed the psychology of a woman involved in an illicit relationship with the perception, artistry, and honesty that Kate Chopin brought to The Awakening.