Quote by Kate Chopin: “She was becoming herself and daily casting aside that fictitious self which we assume like a garment.”

For most of her life, she had been who others needed her to be — a character constructed to meet social expectations. Chopin describes the slow, difficult process of shedding that performance and discovering who you actually are underneath all the roles you've been assigned.

The Awakening was published in 1899 and caused immediate scandal for its sympathetic portrayal of a married woman who seeks independence and pursues her desires. The novel was largely suppressed for decades until the women's liberation movement of the 1960s recognized it as a foundational text.

American author whose 1899 novel The Awakening explored a married woman's search for identity and autonomy in Creole society. Largely dismissed during her lifetime, she was rediscovered by feminist literary scholars in the 1960s and is now recognized as a pioneer of feminist fiction.