The Awakening
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50 free The Awakening trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Kate Chopin's The Awakening scandalised reviewers in 1899 and then slipped out of print for decades. Today it is one of the most widely assigned American novels, read in AP Literature and college survey courses for its portrait of Edna Pontellier, a wife and mother who begins to ask what she owes to anyone but her own self. This quiz follows the book from the opening chapters at the Grand Isle resort through the return to New Orleans and on to the final page. Expect questions on who is who, on what happens and in what order, on the lines and images teachers love to quote, and on Chopin's life and the novel's long road back into print. Use it as a reading check on the early chapters, as multiple-choice practice before a test, or as a refresher before book club. Every answer comes with a short explanation tied to the text, so a wrong guess still teaches you something.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which caged pet opens The Awakening by shrieking French phrases until Léonce Pontellier walks away?
A parrot
A parrot, green and yellow, keeps screaming at him to go away until he gives up reading there and walks off to his own cottage. It belongs to Madame Lebrun, so it has the right to make all the noise it likes.
Q 02Which skill does Edna finally master one moonlit night in The Awakening, after failing all summer?
Swimming
Swimming comes to her all at once, like a tottering child who suddenly finds it can walk alone. Robert Lebrun had given her lessons almost daily and was close to giving up.
Q 03After quarrelling with Léonce in The Awakening, Edna flings down which item and stamps on it in vain?
Her wedding ring
Her wedding ring survives without a mark, however hard her boot heel comes down. A maid hands it back a few minutes later and Edna slips it onto her finger again.
Q 04Robert Lebrun abruptly leaves Grand Isle in The Awakening, claiming a business opening in which country?
Mexico
Mexico had been his talk for years, so Edna is stunned to hear at dinner that he is leaving that very night. He later admits the trip was an excuse to get away from his feelings for her.
Q 05How does Edna Pontellier die in the final chapter of Kate Chopin's The Awakening, back on Grand Isle?
By drowning
By drowning, though Chopin never shows the death itself. The last page stays inside Edna's mind as sounds and scents from her childhood come back to her.
Q 06What nickname is given to the small rented home Edna moves into alone in The Awakening?
The pigeon house
The pigeon house is her servant Ellen's name for it, because it is so small. Edna arranges the move without waiting for her husband's opinion, and carries it out while he is away.
Q 07In The Awakening, Edna marries into which French-descended Louisiana community without ever feeling at home?
Creoles
Creoles at the resort talk so frankly about private matters that Edna is shocked at first. What strikes her most is their complete lack of prudery, which goes hand in hand with a lofty chastity.
Q 08Which pursuit does Edna devote her days to in The Awakening, working in a top-floor studio?
Painting
Painting brings her real money once a dealer named Laidpore begins selling her work. Léonce calls it folly for the mother of a family to spend her days in a studio.
Q 09On the night Robert Lebrun declares his love in The Awakening, Edna is called away to attend what?
A friend's childbirth
A friend's childbirth calls her to Adèle Ratignolle, who has begged Edna to come at once. Edna watches in dread, and Adèle's exhausted parting whisper is a plea to think of the children.
Q 10In The Awakening, Edna tells Adèle Ratignolle she would give her life for her children, but not what?
Herself
Herself is the one thing she will not sacrifice; money and even life she calls the unessential. Adèle cannot follow the distinction, and the two friends argue as if in different languages.
Q 11In The Awakening, Edna recalls walking as a child through a meadow of waist-high grass in which state?
Kentucky
Kentucky bluegrass country was her girlhood home, and the meadow seemed as big as an ocean to the small girl. The memory returns as she sits looking at the Gulf with Adèle Ratignolle.
Q 12Returning home late in The Awakening, Edna finds Robert Lebrun gone and what left behind for her?
A farewell note
A farewell note on a scrap of paper tells her he is leaving because he loves her. Edna does not go to bed; she is still awake when the servant comes in to light the fire next morning.
Q 13Léonce Pontellier leaves Edna on her own in The Awakening when business calls him away to which city?
New York
Q 21Léonce Pontellier opens The Awakening by eyeing his sunburned wife like a damaged piece of what?
Personal property
Personal property that has suffered some damage is how he looks at her, remarking that she is burnt beyond recognition. Edna only studies her strong, shapely hands and laughs across at Robert Lebrun.
Q 22Which label does The Awakening give wives like Adèle Ratignolle, who idolize children and worship husbands?
Mother-women
Mother-women count it a holy privilege to efface themselves as individuals, the narrator says. Edna Pontellier, the same passage declares flatly, is not one of them.
Q 23Back in New Orleans in The Awakening, which weekly social duty does Edna abandon, to Léonce's alarm?
New York takes him away while his mother carries the children off to the country. Left on her own, Edna breathes a sigh of relief and walks through the house as if inspecting it for the first time.
Q 14The Awakening is often paired with which Ibsen play, whose heroine also walks out on husband and children?
A Doll's House
A Doll's House dates from 1879, twenty years before Chopin's novel. The two works share an almost identical theme: a woman who gives up her family in search of a life of her own.
Q 15Whose kiss in The Awakening is the first Edna's nature truly answers, though she does not love him?
Alcée Arobin
Alcée Arobin, a young man of fashion with a bad reputation, kindles desire in her like a flaming torch. Afterwards Edna feels a dull pang of regret that it was not love that had stirred her.
Q 16Which woman in The Awakening feels Edna's shoulder blades to test whether she can rise above convention?
Mademoiselle Reisz
Mademoiselle Reisz, the sharp-tongued pianist, warns that defying tradition and prejudice takes strength. She calls it a sad spectacle to see weaklings fall back to earth bruised and exhausted.
Q 17What does Doctor Mandelet advise when Léonce consults him about Edna's odd behaviour in The Awakening?
Leave her alone
Leave her alone for a while, he says, and the mood will pass happily over. Privately the old doctor wonders whether another man is involved, but he knows better than to ask.
Q 18In the last chapter of The Awakening, Edna does what in the open air for the first time in her life?
Stands naked
Stands naked under the sky, which strikes her as strange, awful and delicious all at once. She feels like a new-born creature opening its eyes on a familiar world it had never known.
Q 19In The Awakening, Edna remembers running away as a girl from her father's gloomy services in which church?
Presbyterian
Presbyterian prayers, read by her father in a spirit of gloom, still chill her to think of. Her family's violent opposition to her marrying a Catholic was one reason she accepted Léonce.
Q 20One night at Grand Isle in The Awakening, Edna defies Léonce's order to come indoors by staying where?
In a hammock
In a hammock outside their cottage she tells him she means to stay out and will not answer if he speaks that way again. Léonce responds by sitting nearby with wine and cigars, outlasting her.
Tuesday reception day
Tuesday reception day meant an afternoon at home in a handsome gown, receiving a constant stream of callers. One week she simply goes out instead, and Léonce lectures her that people do not do such things.
Q 24Edna funds her independence in The Awakening partly with a large sum won one winter doing what?
Betting on horses
Betting on horses suits Edna, who knows the animals as well as any track man and plays for very high stakes. She adds the winnings to a small income from her mother's estate.
Q 25To save appearances when Edna moves out in The Awakening, Léonce has the family home undergo what?
Lavish remodeling
Lavish remodeling, ordered by letter to a well-known architect, explains to society why the house stands empty. A newspaper notice adds that the couple are planning a summer abroad.
Q 26In The Awakening, Edna quarrels violently with her father after refusing to attend which family occasion?
Her sister's wedding
Her sister's wedding goes ahead without her, and Edna offers no excuse at all. Léonce plans to stop at the ceremony on his own, hoping that money and love can atone for his wife's absence.
Q 27Edna's father, who visits New Orleans in The Awakening, held which rank in the Confederate army?
Colonel
Colonel is still his title, and he keeps the military bearing, with coats padded to broaden his chest. He drinks numerous toddies in the course of a day without showing the slightest effect.
Q 28Which occasion does Edna reveal to guests at the grand dinner she gives before moving out in The Awakening?
Her birthday
Her birthday, her twenty-ninth, is admitted only once the party of ten is seated around the table. In her hair is a cluster of diamonds, a present from her husband that had arrived that morning.
Q 29Adèle Ratignolle warns Robert Lebrun off Edna in The Awakening, fearing Edna might make which mistake?
Take him at his word
Take him at his word is the blunder Adèle fears, because Edna is not one of them and may not see the flirting as a game. Robert had played devoted attendant to some woman every summer since he was fifteen.
Q 30Reviewing The Awakening in 1899, Willa Cather set it beside which earlier European novel of adultery?
Madame Bovary
Madame Bovary was her comparison, made in a review for the Pittsburgh Leader. Cather admired the flexible, iridescent style but hoped Chopin would devote it to a better cause.