In this episode, Matthew and Juliette discuss Kate Chopin's The Awakening (1899), a novel that The Nation, in reviewing the novel, said "The Awakening is the sad story of a Southern lady who wanted to do what she wanted to. From wanting to, she did, with disastrous consequences." Chopin's novel is an important feminist novel of the Victorian period, highlighting the constrictions of a patriarchal society that positioned women as nothing more than wives, mothers, and domestic beings.

Matthew and Juliette talk about Chopin's novel in relation to patriarchal society and also discuss some of the problems with the novel, notably Chopin's representation of African American characters.