Introduction / Harold Bloom -- Tradition and the female talent : The awakening as a solitary book / Elaine Showalter -- Kate Chopin's social fiction / Mary E. Papke -- Semiotic subversion in "Désirée's baby" / Ellen Peel -- The teeth of desire : The awakening and The descent of man / Bert Bender -- The quintessence of Chopinism / Martha Fodaski Black -- Kate Chopin : ironist of realism / Kathleen Wheeler -- A writer, her reviewers, and her markets / Emily Toth -- 'Local color' literature and A night in Acadie / Nancy A. Walker -- Unraveling the southern pastoral tradition : a new look at Kate Chopin's At fault / Maureen Anderson -- Chronology.