Kate Chopin was one of the most individual and adventurous of nineteenth-century american writers, whose fiction explored new and often starting territory. When her most famous story, The Awakening, was first published in 1899, it stunned readers with its frank portrayal of the inner word of Edna Pontellier, and its daring criticisms of the limits of marriage and motherhood. From her first stories, Chopin was interested in independent characters who challenged convention.