The Awakening was published in 1899, and it immediately developed a controversy. Kate Chopin's contemporaries were shocked by her depiction of a woman with active sexual desires, who wants to leave her husband and have an affair. Instead of condemning her protagonist, Chopin maintains a neutral, non-judgmental tone throughout and appears to even condone her character's unconventional actions. Kate Chopin was socially ostracized after the publication of her novel, which was almost forgotten until the second …
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… her fiction, Chopin explores the special problems and dilemmas that women face and is unafraid to suggest that sometimes women want sex, or even independence. All of these themes appear in Kate Chopin's second and final novel, The Awakening. After the public uproar over The Awakening, Chopin wrote only seven short stories between 1900 and 1904. Her life came to an end on August 22, 1904, after she suffered a stroke while visiting the St. Louis World's Fair.