SOURCE: Toth, Emily. “Kate Chopin's The Awakening as Feminist Criticism.” Southern Studies 2, nos. 3-4 (fall-winter 1991): 231-41.

In the following essay, originally published in 1976, Toth argues that The Awakening belongs to the didactic feminist tradition of women's literature.

The title of this essay is bound to annoy some readers. The Awakening's not about “Women's Lib,” they may argue. It's a skillfully written novel, not a tract. It's a work of art, not a polemic. Or—as some critics have claimed—it's not really about women at all, but about the universal, existential human condition, loneliness and alienation.¹

But Edna Pontellier is a woman, and what happens to her would not have happened to a man. The Awakening is a story of what happens when a woman does not accept her place in the home. The novel moves us because it illustrates the need for women's psychological, physical, social...