Controversial, scandalous and almost universally censored and criticized upon its first release in 1899, Kate Chopin's "The Awakening" is a pioneering novel of female independence and sexual exploration and was one of the earliest American works of fiction to examine the societal oppression that beset married women in the last 19th century. Set in the Gulf Coast of Louisiana, the plot centers around young Edna Pontellier, a married woman who is chafing...