Kate Chopin's The Awakening shocked turn-of-the-century readers with its frank treatment of sex. Departing from literary convention, Chopin failed to condemn her heroine's desire for an affair with the son of a Louisiana property owner. In the story, Edna Pontellier struggles between her unorthodox views on femininity and motherhood versus the prevailing social attitudes of the American South in 1899.

The Awakening and Selected Short Stories is widely considered to be a landmark work of early feminism.