The Awakening and Other Stories

<P> To all outside appearances, Edna Pontellier is a respectable married woman living in New Orleans with her fond, indulgent husband and her two young sons. Beneath Edna’s smooth, graceful face, however, lurks a woman of passion, a woman who will not—or simply cannot—efface herself in the role that her husband expects of her: an angelic being who reveres him, dotes on their children, and obediently erases her individuality in service to the family’s happiness. </P><P> But one lazy summer vacation and an apparently harmless infatuation will push Edna beyond this quiet, settled life, placing her directly at odds with society’s expectations of what a woman should be. </P><P> This volume features additional short stories, including works that wrestled with such topics as racial passing, in “Désirée’s Baby,” infidelity, in “A Respectable Woman,” and queer attraction, in “Fedora.” </P>