Day 10: Favorite Classic Book

I'm taking part of the 30 Day Book Challenge.  Click the link to do it too (and add your blog to my meme)! 


Some of you may not consider this book a classic.  It isn't actually a book anyway.  It isn't really meant to be read.  It's meant to be played--performed. On stage.  I consider it a classic all the same.

A Midsummer Night's Dream was the very first Shakespeare play I ever read in its entirety.  It was assigned reading in my honors 7th grade English class.  I fell in love with this play.  I fell in love with the stage and theatre arts because of this work.  I fell in love with Shakespeare because of this one text, and through Shakespeare I discovered Christopher Marlowe whose works I love more than just about anything else on any bookshelf anywhere.  I didn't select a Marlowe play here though...because Shakespeare led me to Marlowe.  I love the lovers' merry (and not so merry) chase through the enchanted wood.  I love Titania and Oberon's spat and Puck's interference.  I love everything about this play.  I read it several times a year.

Banned Book: The Awakening by Kate Chopin

Before there was Elizabeth Gilbert and Eat Pray Love, there was Kate Chopin and The Awakening.  Chopin penned The Awakening in 1899.  It was the Victorian era.  It was a time of marked constraint.  Propriety was a top priority. 

Edna Pontellier, Chopin's protagonist, was anything but the ideal Victorian woman.  Edna's actions flew in the face of Victorian notions of proper female behavior and familial obligations.  The book outlines Edna's awakening.  Edna's is a journey of self-actualization, self-understanding, self-reflection.

Edna is a twenty-eight year old housewife.  She is defined by society, and in the beginning by herself, as a wife and a mother.  All other aspects of her personality are pushed to the edges, overshadowed by Edna-Wife and Edna-Mother. 

While on vacation in Louisiana Edna begins to realize her own dissatisfaction with her existence as Edna-Wife-Mother.  She begins to search for happiness, and that search leads her to behave in ways that are not socially acceptable. 

If you want to read about strong women, real women--you'll want to read about Edna Pontellier.  You want sex? Scandal?  Adultery?  Go to your local library and check out The Awakening.  It's so shocking it was banned.