The Awakening by ELI Publishing

KATE CHOPIN THE AWAKENING

First Summer at Grand Isle

About the Book

1 This powerful story, by American writer Kate Chopin, will take you to a world that is very different from today’s.

2 You will enjoy finding out about the beautiful Louisiana Gulf coast and the city of New Orleans during the 1890s, and the people who lived there.

3 The characters come from a very particular time and place—a southern US culture called Creole.

4 Their decisions and behavior will give you lots to think about and, perhaps, to question.

5 It will be interesting to compare your experience of life with that of Chopin’s characters.

About the Author

Kate Chopin (born Katherine O’Flaherty) was born on February 8, 1850, in St. Louis, Missouri into a rich family that was part Irish, and part French-Creole from the southern US. These two very different traditions—Irish and FrenchCreole—became the subject of her later writing.

Strong Women

When she was five, her father died in a railroad accident, then her half-brother died in the American Civil War (1861–1865). As a result, Kate grew up in the care of three strong women: her mother, grandmother, and her greatgrandmother, Victoire Charleville. Her great-grandmother, in particular, taught her French and music, and above all, to become a confident, well-educated woman.

Marriage and New Orleans

At her Catholic school Kate studied in French and English. She read many European and American writers, including philosopher and poet, Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882).

In 1870, aged 20, she married Oscar Chopin, a FrenchCreole businessman, and moved with him to New Orleans. The couple had six children in nine years. However, Oscar’s business failed and then, in 1882, only twelve years after they were married, he died of malaria—a disease carried by insects called mosquitoes.

Writing to Make Money

Kate was suddenly alone. She needed to pay back money that her husband had borrowed to save his business and had six young children to look after. She moved back to her family in St Louis, and began to write to earn money. She wrote stories and essays for magazines such as Vogue, Atlantic Monthly, and Century. She and her writing became well-known. Her first collection of short stories, Bayou Folk (1894), was well received by the public.

The Public is Shocked

Chopin’s next work, The Awakening (1899), changed everything. Using her own experiences, it told the story of a woman who wanted to be more than just a mother and a wife, who wanted to make her own decisions about her life, and her body. Readers were shocked by how open Chopin was about the needs and choices of her main character, Edna Pontellier. People stopped reading her work, and Chopin herself found that she was no longer welcome in society. After this, she wrote very little and she died five years later, on August 22, 1904.

Re-Discovery

Chopin’s work was forgotten until the 1950s, when it was discovered by a new generation of readers.

OOKMARKS

Bookmarks is an innovative series of graded readers for curious students who want to enjoy reading in English. It is divided into six levels from beginner to advanced.

Don’t miss Bookmarks Readers, the series where every reader finds their place.

The Awakening by Kate Chopin

Adaptation and activities by Elizabeth Ferretti

Illustrated by Isabella Grott

In this novel you will see to-morrow, to-night, good-night written with a hyphen. This was correct in 1899 when The Awakening was published. In modern English we write tomorrow, tonight and good night.

Bookmarks

Founder and Series Editors

Grazia Ancillani, Daniele Garbuglia (Art Director)

Graphic Design and Layout: Emilia Coari

Production Manager: Francesco Capitano

Typeset in 12 / 15 pt Monotype Dante

Printed in Italy by Tecnostampa Recanati – EBM401.01

ISBN 978-88-536-4860-0 First edition: February 2026

www.elipublishing.com

Kate Chopin The Awakening

Retold by Elizabeth Ferretti

Illustrated by Isabella Grott

About the Story

Kate Chopin’s The Awakening (1899) takes place in New Orleans and Grand Isle, in the southern U.S. state of Louisiana. This state has a special way of life called Creole, shaped by the French and Spanish people who lived there before it became part of the United States.

The story begins on Grand Isle, in the Gulf of Mexico/ America, where rich families from New Orleans go to escape the summer heat. On Grand Isle, life is relaxed. People swim, hold parties, and enjoy the sea. For Edna Pontellier, the main character, this new freedom is exciting. She begins to think about who she really is—and who she might become.

In New Orleans in the late 1800s, men make most of the decisions and women have few freedoms. But Edna isn’t Creole —she’s from an English farming family from Kentucky, 1200 km to the northeast. She doesn’t speak French or Spanish, and does not always feel comfortable with their ways of behaving.

As the story goes on, Edna finds it harder and harder to live the life others expect of her. She starts to dream of a life where she can be herself—something more than just a wife or mother.

Mrs. Edna Pontellier

Young and beautiful, she has everything— a generous husband, two young sons, and a beautiful home in New Orleans. But is this enough? Could she hope for more?

Main Characters

Madame Adèle Ratignolle

A small, unfashionable woman who is on holiday at Grand Isle. She can be difficult, but is thoughtful and a wonderful musician.

When she plays the piano, everyone listens.

Adèle is happily married to Monsieur Alphonse Ratignolle. She loves her husband and children, they are everything to her. She is a good friend to Edna, and understands her better than she realizes.

Mademoiselle Reisz

Robert Lebrun

Every summer at Grand Isle, handsome, romantic Robert chooses a girl or woman to be friends with. However, this summer, everything is going to change.

Mr. Léonce Pontellier

A traditional husband and father, he loves his wife and his boys. He has a successful business, but feels the eyes of his Creole society on him.

Alcée Arobin

Handsome and fun to be with, Alcée likes to spend his time with beautiful women. He knows how to get what he wants, but doesn’t feel anything very deeply.

The Awakening

Chapter 1 First Summer at Grand Isle

Mr. Pontellier was reading yesterday’s newspaper on the porch*. He raised his eyes and looked about him. Pontellier’s two children were there—strong young boys of four and five. A white parasol* was coming slowly up from the beach. Beneath it were his wife, Mrs. Pontellier, and young Robert Lebrun. When they arrived, they sat on the steps below him.

“It was silly to go swimming in such heat! You are quite burnt,” Mr. Pontellier said, looking at his wife as if she were an expensive object that was damaged. She looked at the back of her hands and remembered she’d taken her rings off before going to the beach. Her husband took them from his pocket and gave them to her. She put them on; then she looked at Robert and began to laugh.

“What is it?” asked Pontellier. It was some silly story, an adventure out on the water that did not seem as funny when they told him.

“Come to Klein’s hotel with me for a game of billiards*, Lebrun,” he said, standing up.

Robert said he would rather stay.

First Summer at Grand Isle

“Well, send him away when he bores you, Edna,” her husband said.

The two boys followed their father when they saw him leaving. He kissed them and promised to bring them back candy and peanuts.

Robert told Mrs. Pontellier he planned to go Mexico in the autumn, to make money. He was always planning to go, but never seemed to get there.

It was late and his wife was asleep when Mr. Pontellier returned from Klein’s in an excellent mood. He woke his wife, went to check his sons and came back saying Raoul had a high temperature. Mrs. Pontellier, still sleepy, was sure Raoul was not ill. Mr. Pontellier told his wife she did not look after her children. If it was not a mother’s job to look after children, whose was it? He could not be in two places at once; at work and at home to see they were safe. He went to bed, and in half a minute he was asleep.

Mrs. Pontellier went out on the porch and began to cry. The only sounds were a night bird and the neverending voice of the sea. She could not have said why she was crying. Her husband was kind, she was the center of his life, but suddenly she was unhappy. The feeling filled her whole being like a shadow.

Next day Mr. Pontellier returned to New Orleans for business. A few days later a box arrived from the city for Mrs. Pontellier, filled with candy and expensive fruits. She took the box to the dining-room at the house*. The ladies, choosing candies with greedy* fingers, all said

The Awakening

Mr. Pontellier was the best husband in the world. Mrs. Pontellier had to admit she knew of none better.

Mr. Pontellier felt that Mrs. Pontellier was not the best mother. If one of the boys fell, he would not run to his mother’s arms; he would pick himself up, wipe the tears from his eyes, and go on playing. In short, Mrs. Pontellier was not a ‘mother-woman’—a woman who lived only for her children.

The beautiful Adèle Ratignolle was a ‘motherwoman’. She often took her sewing* to sit with Mrs. Pontellier. That afternoon Robert was there when she arrived. Robert had lived in Mrs. Pontellier’s shadow during the past month. No one thought anything of it. Since the age of fifteen, eleven years before, each summer at Grand Isle he had chosen a girl or woman to give his attention to. For two summers he lived in the sunlight of Mademoiselle Duvign. But she died; so he went to Madame Ratignolle.

“Madame let me adore* her,” Robert said, smiling at Madame Ratignolle. “It was ‘Robert, come; go; do this; do that; see if the baby sleeps; read to me.”

“I never had to ask. You were always under my feet, like an annoying cat,” replied Madame Ratignolle.

“And when Monsieur Ratignolle arrived you sent me off.”

“Perhaps I was worried Alphonse would be jealous,” she said. That made them all laugh. The Creole husband is never jealous.

Mrs. Pontellier arrived with young Robert Lebrun.

The Awakening

Robert never joked when alone with Mrs. Pontellier. She liked it that way. She would have found his jokes annoying.

Mrs. Pontellier loved to paint and started a painting of Madame Ratignolle. Robert sat near and followed her work closely. He rested his head against her arm. She pushed him away. He did it again. She quietly pushed him away again but he did not say sorry for his rude behavior.

The picture did not look like Madame Ratignolle. Mrs. Pontellier drew a thick line of paint across it, then threw the paper away. The children were starting their games under the oaks*. Madame Ratignolle put her sewing away and left, saying she felt unwell.

“Are you going swimming?” Robert reminded Mrs. Pontellier.

“Oh, no,” she answered. “I’m tired; I think not.”

She looked toward the Gulf*. The waves were like an invitation.

“Come!” he said. “You mustn’t miss your swim.” He got her hat and put it on her head and they walked together to the beach. The sun was low in the west, the wind was soft and warm. Edna Pontellier wanted to go with Robert so could not say why she had said no. She could not think clearly. She was in a dream world, felt again that shadow of sadness from that night when she had sat alone on the porch and cried.

The voice of the sea calls to you, inviting the soul* to walk in the deepest parts of itself, to lose itself in