The Awakening and Selected Short StoriesAlthough Kate Chopin lived in St. Louis, Missouri, for most of her life, the few years that she spent in Louisiana profoundly influenced her writing career, which lasted from about 1888 to 1902. Her best known work, The Awakening (1899), created a sensation in its day by depicting a woman whose dissatisfaction with her role in society leads her to seek a life independent of her husband and children. The short novel was nearly forgotten for more than