Although the book was originally published in 1899, its leading character, Edna Pontellier, could be mistaken for a modern-day liberated woman. In the summer of her twenty-eighth year, as she watched numerous mothers on a beach, she vowed to honor the deep yearnings within her that she sensed were unfulfilled by marriage and motherhood.
Kate Chopin, was born Katherine O'Flaherty in St. Louis on Feburary8,1851, of a prosperous Irish-born merchant father and an aristocratic Creole mother. She studied piano, wrote poetry, and read Dickens, Austen, Goethe, de Stael, and the Brontes. Despite her free spirit--she was once nicknamed the "littlest rebel" for yanking down a Union flag--Kate grew to be a leading social belle, admired for her wit and beauty.
In 1870 she married Oscar Chopin. Matrimony did not quell her independence; she dressed unconventionally, took long unchaperoned walks, and smoked cigarettes. In their twelve years of married life, she bore six children, and upon Oscar's sudden death in 1882 she took over the management of the Chopin family plantation in Natchitoches, Louisana. She turned seriously to writing shortly thereafter, publishing stories in Vogue and Atlantic Monthly. She wrote a novel, At Fault(1890), Bayou Folk, a collection of stories(1894), A Night in Acadie, a second collection (1897), and her masterpiece The Awakening(1899), which aroused a national scandal for its "indecency." Banned by libraries, it even prevented her admission into the St. Louis Fine Arts Club--even though Kate Chopin was famous for her literary salon, which attracted distinguished artists and writers from all over the country.
Always sensitive to criticism, Chopin was devastated by the furor that surrounded the publication of The Awakening, and its harsh reception ultimately caused her to stop writing. When she died in 1904, she had been denied the recognition she desperately wanted and richly deserved.
今晚一口气读完《觉醒》这本书,原名为《孤独的灵魂》(A Solitary Soul)。在读之前并不知道还有这个如此喜欢的原名,就连作者是谁都不知道,对小说的背景也毫不了解。只是看着名字感觉还不错,页数也不是很多,应该可以在较短时间内读完,拿来练习一下速读应该还可以。没想到...
评分 评分 评分 评分读完《觉醒》,心底里有点压抑,更偏向凯特 肖邦一开始对于这部著作的命名《孤独的灵魂》。 或许读一遍着实不足以洞悉作者在塑造人物形象和叙述故事情节时的用心良苦,但我仍然想把内心的切实感受叙述一二。 女主人公艾德娜觉醒的过程在一个女人不以自己独存而...