Kate Chopin The Storm

Her sexuality has been repressed by the constraints of her marriage and society's view of women, represented by the housework being done before the storm hits. Chopin alludes to this theme of suppression again as Alcee is invited into Calixta's home. The author writes, 'Come 'long in, M'sieur Alcee. His voice and her own startled her as if from a trance, and she seized Bobinot's vest. Alcee, mounting to the porch, grabbed the trousers and snatched Bibi's braided jacket that was about to be carried away by a sudden gust of wind.'; Alcee grabs Bobinot's pants, symbolically subverting the social and martial constraints that control Calixta.

Then before and during their powerful sexual encounter Chopin uses white to symbolize purity: “her white neck,” “white throat and her whiter breasts,” and “white as the couch she lay upon” (533). Chopin defines Calixta’s affection “was like a white flame” (533). This describes the white flame being the most powerful part of the flame. Her passion for him was so superior that nothing could be done to halt her emotions. Adding to the symbolism of the color white could also be related to her Spanish blood. “Perhaps only possible because of her “mixed blood” which allows an expression of sexuality deemed outside the bounds of white norms” (Brown as std. in Holtman 76). Adding to symbolism in “The Storm” Chopin states “Do you remember in Assumption, Calixta?” (533). This describes the purity and innocence referring to the Virgin Mary. As stated in a criticism Anna Shannon Elfenbein, “who asserts that Chopin’s reference to the town of Assumption elevates ‘sexual experience to the status of a religious sacrament’” (Stein 55). This means assumption is the elevating of the body of Mary into heaven.

In the story "The Storm", Kate Chopin plots a situation in which two people surrender to their physical desires. Chopin wrote fiction stories in the late 19th century. She was condemned due to the immorality presented in her work. At her times, woman was considered to be very innocent, and always faithful to her husband. In Chopin's work one sees a totally different view of a woman's behavior. She is not a popular writer of her era because of her crude works; the audience of her period could not justify her stories. In the story "the storm", Kate Chopin by hiding the immoral behavior of her characters behind the fear of bad weather is being ironic.

The short story “The Storm” by Kate Chopin revolves around a theme of adultery. The story takes place in Southern Louisiana during the early 1900’s. “The Storm” not only serves as a title but creates a setting as well as symbolizing the affair that takes place between the two main characters, Calixta, the wife and Alcee, the former lover. While reading the story, you’ll begin to notice that as the storm begins, comes to a peak and ends, so does the affair and the story. Overall, the title metaphorically resembles their relationship while also implying that adultery is natural being that a storm is also a natural occurrence. Not only does Chopin use imagery to shape Calixta and Alcee’s sexual encounter in Calixta’s house, but he also uses the color “white” which represents purity. Although this sinful act does not illustrate purity, the experience and feeling that the two lovers undergo during the act does. This also goes to say that Chopin uses both imagery and color to also redefine female agency and sexuality.

In order to better understand how society's expectations of women are incorporated in “The Storm,” it is important to understand author Kate Chopin's protest. Chopin's writings gave the “potential to unhinge patriarchal discourse” (Cutter) by giving women a voice. Her earlier works focused on passive women who were unheard and oppressed in a patriarchal society. Her later works show contrast by “moving towards a clearer understanding of how women most effectively can resist patriarchal suppression” (Cutter). As Chopin's career progressed, she gave

'The Storm' and 'The Story of an Hour' expresses the attitudes of two women's rebirth and liberation. These two stories are alike in several ways. Natures plays a major role in both of these women's lives. Calixta and Mrs. Louise Mallard struggle to find their independence and in doing so the endings are triumphant and tragic.

In “The Storm” Kate Chopin makes the setting an essential and entwined part of her action and ideas. The story focuses on the two main characters, Calixta and Alcee and their short love affair. The action is taking place in a small town in Louisiana where all of the characters live. The story is set in the late nineteenth century when adultery was not expected from anyone, as woman were considered to be innocent and faithful. The integration of setting and story can be followed in details about the storm itself, setting of the atmosphere/mood, and also the complexities of married status in the society.

Their love-making was so intense that neither of them had felt those emotions and sensations before. “She was a revelation in that dim, mysterious chamber; as white as the couch she lay upon.” (Chopin807) Chopin goes on to say; “The generous abundance of her passion, without guile or trickery, was like a white flame which penetrated and found response in depths of his own sensuous nature that had never yet had been reached.”(807) She stated that text because Calixta had never felt that way with her own husband. Also, Chopin refers to “her mouth being a fountain of delight.” (807) She adds, “And when he possessed her, they seemed swoon together at the very borderline of life’s mystery.” (807)This must have been when they reached their climax. “They were over whelmed by ecstatic joy.”(Freedictionary.com/swoon)

Calixta is shown to be content with her marriage with Bobinot, as ‘’they laughed much and so loud that anyone might have heard them as far away as Laballiere’s’’

The presence of Calixta's sexual desire and its intensity make this story revolutionary in its feminist statement about female sexuality. Chopin uses the conceit of a thunderstorm to describe the development, peak, and ebbing of passion in the encounter between Calixta and Alcee. At first, Calixta is unaware of the approaching storm, just as her sexual desire might be on an unconscious level; yet, as the storm approaches, Calixta grows warm and damp with perspiration. Chopin does the obvious by these two events when she writes that Calixta, "felt very warm . . . she unfastened her white saque at the throat. It began to grow dark and suddenly realizing the situation she got up and hurriedly went about closing windows and doors" (Part 2 Paragraph 1).

A storm can represent and symbolize many different meanings. The impact of the word can be brought about in many different views and aspects that arrange themselves to create and portray detailed information and great definition to the subject of the short story as a whole. By using the storm as a symbol, it gives way to a passage that will encounter the relationship and parallel aspect of both the fervent thunder that occurs and the sexual passion that is encountered throughout the story. Kate Chopin opens up an interesting view and tentative explanation of human sexuality and the strong point of view of regulations placed on human sexuality as well as the aspect of trying to control a storm. By tying up these two ideas with one word,

Before the storm hits Calixta “sat at a side window sewing furiously on a sewing machine. She was greatly occupied and did not notice the approaching storm” (Chopin PII). She was working so hard because she was attempting to bury her emotional needs, so much in fact that she did not notice the approaching storm and was sweating profusely. While working so hard to keep her emotions at bay she “unfastened her white sacque at the throat” (Chopin PII), which is symbolic of her openness to the attractions of another.

In “The Storm”, a short story by Kate Chopin, it is about a woman named Calixta who reignites a romance with a man who she was formerly in love with. This rekindle happens in the midst of a major storm, where her husband and son are stuck at the market. Calixta sits alone during this storm, very into her housework and does not even really there is a huge storm brewing. This supports the lifestyle and the roles of the women in the nineteenth century. When the wife finally notices there will soon come a storm she quickly runs to shut all the windows and get the laundry, before it is ruined by the rain. While outside, she notices an old lover Alcee, who asks for shelter while the storm passes. As her old lover enters, they fall into the lust

The sexual scene that occurs begins with a strong image, “crashing currents”, that describes perfectly what is happening both outside, with the storm, and inside, with the intense emotions. However, what is interesting is Chopin's use of the color white. When one thinks of strong passion, one links the color red to it, but that is not what Chopin uses. Instead, she uses the color white - the color linked to purity and innocence- throughout the sexual scene. For example, she mentions how “Her white neck and a glimpse of her full, firm bosom disturbed him powerfully” (Chopin), and that “The generous abundance of her passion, without guile or trickery, was like a white flame” (Chopin). Describing her passion as a “white flame” is quite interesting. Seeing as the color white is linked to purity, this is a strange way of describing an adulterous

   In Kate Chopin's time traditional patriarchal notions about women and sexuality deemed sexual passion a negligible, even improper, aspect of women's lives. Yet Chopin boldly addresses a woman's sexual desire in her short story "The Storm". This story shockingly details a torrid extramarital sexual encounter between Calixta and Alcee` in the midst of a raging storm. While this story line could have been presented in a traditional light, perhaps as a lesson about the evils of uninhibited female sexuality, Chopin maintains a non-judgmental stance by refraining from moralizing about the sanctity of marriage or impropriety of Calixta's actions. In failing to condemn and even