The short novel, The Awakening, begins at a crisis in Edna Pontellier’s life. Edna is a free-spirited and passionate woman who has a hard time finding means of communications and a real role as a wife and a mother. Edna finds herself desperately wanting her own emotional and sexual identities. During one summer while her husband, Leonce, is out of town on business, her frustration and need for emotional freedom leads to an affair with a younger man. Her search for identity and love leads her on a wild ride against society and tests her strengths to the end. The book raises issues about the role of women in society, not only in the time perio