Published in April 1899, Kate Chopin’s The
Awakening met with a barrage of negative reviews. Chopin was
typically castigated by the New Orleans
Times-Democrat newspaper for “totally unjustifiable
conduct”. The central character of the novel, Edna Pontellier, was
vilified for infidelity and for selfishly neglecting her husband
and children. Moral condemnation, with some slippage from character
to author, was a common critical response. A positive review by
Charles Deyo in the St Louis Post-Dispatch interpreted the
…
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