The Awakening has enjoyed a strange success: At the time of its publication, critics condemned the novel for its heroine's unrepentant drive for independence and emotional, sexual, and spiritual awakening. Although contrary to legend it was never a banned book, the novel fell into obscurity for 70 years. Read in the radical context of the 1960s, The Awakening was received enthusiastically as a valid work; the scandal that destroyed its chance of success at the time of its publication seemed absurd.
A scandal usually secures a book's success, particularly when a book is accused not only of describing immorality but also of promoting it — typically in such a situation, everyone wants to find out what they're not supposed to hear or know. This phenomenon did not occur with The Awakening, however, possibly because Edna's story was just too depressing: She is not a character made two dimensional by excessive virtue or vice; rather, she achieves a certain realism in her character's mixture of flaws and features. She's too real, and readers found it too sad that she must kill herself to finally elude society's demand that she be a mother first and a human being second. Female readers in 1899 did not find an easy escape out of their own lives when they picked up The Awakening — entering Edna's life, they were forced to understand her choices and lack of them, and re-encounter the same limitations that marked their own lives.
Many male reviewers condemned The Awakening primarily out of fear of the very real shifting in the social order. Women were still required by society to live and uphold the mother-woman role, but at the same time, they were increasingly choosing to work outside the home. The suffrage movement was in full swing, threatening the masculine grip on the realms of politics and economics. While Edna is no suffragette, evidencing no interest in any cause other than her own intensely personal agenda, her rejection of the mother-woman role, exploration of her sexuality with men other than her husband, and indifference to the opinions of mainstream society make her threatening indeed to those readers who wished women would remain at home.
