The Awakening is a short novel by Kate Chopin, first published in 1899. It is widely considered to be a proto-feminist precursor to American modernism.
The Awakening, was published, and was criticized based on moral as well as literary standards. Her best-known work, it is the story of a dissatisfied wife. Out of print for several decades, it is now widely available and critically acclaimed for its writing quality and importance as an early feminist work.
— Excerpted from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.