George
Washington Cable
(1844-1925) and
Kate Chopin
(1851-1904), whose powerful novels set in Louisiana transcend the
local color label. Cable's
The Grandissimes
(1880) treats racial injustice with great artistry; like Kate Chopin's daring novel
The Awakening
(1899), about a woman's doomed attempt to find her own identity through passion, it was ahead of its
time. In
The Awakening
, a young married woman with attractive children and an indulgent and successful husband gives
up family, money, respectability, and eventually her life in search of self-realization. Poetic evocations of ocean, birds
(caged and freed), and music endow this short novel with unusual intensity and complexity.
Often paired with
The Awakening
is the fine story "
The Yellow Wallpaper
" (1892) by
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