Page "The Awakening (novel)" Paragraph 26

However, published reviews ran the gamut from outright condemnation to the recognition of The Awakening as an important work of fiction by a gifted practitioner.

A good example of this can be found in the divergent reactions of two newspapers in Kate Chopin's hometown of St. Louis, Missouri.

The St. Louis Republic labeled the novel " poison " and " too strong a drink for moral babes " and the St. Louis Mirror said: " One would fain beg the gods, in pure cowardice, for sleep unending rather than to know what an ugly, cruel, loathsome Monster Passion can be when, like a tiger, it slowly awakens.

This is the kind of awakening that impresses the reader in Mrs. Chopin's heroine.

" Later in the same year, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch would write in praise of the novel in an essay entitled " A St. Louis Woman Who Has Turned Fame Into Literature.