Infidelity and female sexuality in Kate Chopin's The Awakening and D.H Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover

This study offers a comparative analysis of The Awakening by Kate Chopin and Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence, with a particular focus on the representation of female sexuality and infidelity. Drawing upon feminist literary criticism and gynocriticism, the study interrogates how gendered authorship and narrative voice influence the portrayal of women's desire, subjectivity, and agency within patriarchal literary traditions. Employing a qualitative, textual analysis methodology, the research examines how Chopin and Lawrence construct their female protagonists' extramarital relationships not merely as personal transgressions, but as sites of ideological struggle and cultural meaning. The Awakening is read as a gynocritical narrative that foregrounds Edna Pontellier's quest for selfhood and erotic autonomy, challenging traditional constructs of marriage and motherhood. Conversely, Lady Chatterley's Lover, while seemingly progressive in its treatment of female desire, ultimately reaffirms male-centered paradigms by situating Connie Chatterley's awakening within a heteronormative, nature-bound framework shaped by the male gaze. The study concludes that Chopin's narrative offers a more radical and authentic articulation of female autonomy, whereas Lawrence's portrayal, though sexually explicit, remains constrained by essentialist gender binaries. In this respect, this research underscores the critical significance of narrative authority and authorial gender in shaping literary representations of female transgression and liberation.