In The Awakening (1899), Kate Chopin tells the story of a young woman who marries a man she does not really love, suffers from boredom, takes up with an unsuitable younger man who stirs her passion, and meets an untimely end. The similarities to a certain novel by Gustave Flaubert were noticed at the time: in a review, Willa Cather called The Awakening a "Creole Bovary." But all stories of dissatisfied wives are not alike, and Edna Pontellier is a completely realized character, not a knock-off Emma Bovary (or Anna Karenina, for that matter). Adding to the notoriety of the book was its female authorship: women were not supposed to feel such things, much less write about them. In her short fiction, Chopin dealt again with women's hidden longings ("A Pair of Silk Stockings," "A Respectable Woman"), as well as topics like race ("Desiree's Baby"), the Civil War ("The Locket"), and its aftermath ("Ma'ame Pelagie").