Kate Chopin Women

Chopin presents many details of Calixta's affirmation of her sexuality and passion. As the storm's intensity increases, it becomes necessary to put something underneath the door to keep the rain out. ''My! what a rain! It's good two years sence it rained it rain' like that,' exclaimed Calixta as she rolled up a piece of bagging and Alcee helped her to thrust it beneath the crack.'; The sexual connotation of 'thrusting it beneath the crack'; is evident, but it is important to notice that Calixta initiates this sexual act, not Alcee. This is a far cry from an ordinary, repressed housewife. Quite the contrary, Chopin actually

First, numerous people especially women in the early 1900s fall into others’ expectations upon and before their marriage. In “A Pair of Silk Stockings” and “A Shameful Affair”, two of their main characters are women, and they both fall into societal expectations about them where they later lose their freedom. For example, in “A Pair of Silk Stocking”, Chopin targets the social expectation upon one’s marriage where she describes the usual mother’s responsibilities by saying “A dollar or two should be added to the price usually paid for Janie’s shoes, which would insure their lasting an appreciable time longer than they usually did” () As Chopin utilizes imagery, this infers an image of what Mrs. Sommers plans to do as a mother, who she carefully plan her money to buy new clothes for her children. Moreover, the word “insures” means to arrange compensation for damage that is done to the event, whereas the word “appreciable” means large enough to be noticed. Yet, both connotes a stable lasting which further reveal that one of the mother’s roles that is expected by the society is to know how use the money wisely for their children without falling in debt. Thus, the responsibilities of a mother have overloaded her where she later turn in self-indulgent. Likewise, Chopin not only portrays how women fall into others’ expectations upon their marriage yet they also fall into it before their marriage. In the short story “A Shameful Affair”, the author describes the primary character as Mildred Kraummer, who she falls in love with the one of the farmhands. While Mildred meets him fishing, they accidentally give a kiss where the author narrates “He kissed her lips… Shame

During the feminist movement many female authors began to write novels about female emancipation. In these novels, the protagonist experiences enlightenment where she discovers that she is living an incomplete life that society has oppressed her into. Before the movement, society forced women into roles that were inferior to men and they were thought of as men’s property. Harold bloom states, “The direction of The Awakening follows what is becoming a pattern in literature by and about women…toward greater self-knowledge that leads in turn to a revelation of the disparity between that self-knowledge and nature of the world” (Bloom, Kate Chopin 43). Moreover, Chopin viewed women’s independence as a personal challenge more than a social struggle, which contradicts her literary works. According to Harold Bloom, “Chopin’s novel was not intended to make a broad social statement but rather that it indicates that Chopin viewed women’s independence as a personal matter”(Bloom, Bloom’s Notes 58). In the past, the novel was banned because of its connection to the feminist movement.

     Kate Chopin was one of the greatest and earliest feminist writers in history, whose works have inspired some and drawn much criticism from others. Chopin, through her writings, had shown her struggle for freedom and individuality.

Commonly explored throughout her works, the idea of marriage inhibiting a woman’s freedom is the driving force behind Kate Chopin’s contextual objections to propriety. In particular, The Awakening and “The Story of an Hour” explore the lives of women seeking marital liberation and individuality. Mrs. Chopin, who was raised in a matriarchal household, expresses her opposition to the nineteenth century patriarchal society while using her personal experiences to exemplify her feminist views.

Many female writers write about women's struggle for equality and how they are looked upon as inferior. Kate Chopin exhibits her views about women in her stories. The relationship between men and women in Kate Chopin's stories imply the attitudes that men and women portray. In many of Chopin's works, the idea that women's actions are driven by the men in the story reveals that men are oppressive and dominant and women are vulnerable, gullable and sensitive. Chopin also shows that females, like Desiree and Eleanor, undergo a transformation from dependent and weak to stronger women free from their husbands by the end of the story. In the short story 'Desiree's Baby,' Kate

Chopin and Freeman lived in a time when men dominated women; a woman’s job was to marry, have a home, and raise children. Women were their husband’s property and law did not protect them if they were abused. (Plaza) Owning land, making financial decisions, and voting was among the many things women could not do. Freeman and Chopin both used their literary works to shed light on those subjects.

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.

The main focus of this short story is desire. The desire shown by both Calixta and Alcée for each other is obvious. Many people during the time this short story was written would look at it as being “dirty” or filthy. They would look at the affair as being dishonest and unlawful; similar to the way that some of us today. However, the way Chopin expresses the affair is not at all a sense of guilty. She presences it as if it was something that happens often and that it is a natural thing that humans do. Sexual desire is a natural aspect of people’s lives. Even though she is a strong feminist, she does not limit these sexual desires to just the female character, Calixta. She also dives deep into the desires of a man as well. “Both males and females, she seems to tell us, are complex creatures whom have no choice but to discover their passion, in spite of risks, confusion, and guilt. (Bloom 81)”. According to Per Seyersted, “sex in this story is a force as strong, inevitable, and natural as the Louisiana storm which ignites it” (Koloski 145). She observes sex as being a natural thing that cannot be avoided in or outside of wedlock (Koloski 147). She writes as if this affair was unavoidable to the drives between the two characters.

In Kate Chopin’s “The Storm,” a storm creates the perfect opportunity for a married woman to relieve herself of her strains from the domestic sphere. Away from both of their spouses, two married individuals Calixta and Alce, are able to find happiness in having a passionate sexual encounter with each other during the storm. The framing structure, plot element of the storm, and imagery Kate Chopin utilizes in “The Storm,” focuses the reader on Calixta’s liberation, overpowering the moral dimensions of having an affair as a married woman in the 19th century. In the opening section of “The Storm,” the framing is immediately shifted towards Calixta from the description of her family dynamic and with the storm driving the movement of the story, to portray her change in character.

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).

Throughout the story, Chopin depicts feminine sexuality in the imagery of the storm and rejects the repressive view by society of women’s sexuality and passion. Curiously, Chopin ends the story by writing, “So the storm passed and every one was happy.” This line is done in a “tongue and check” fashion to imply that on the outside, Calixta was satisfied and this encounter was just a passing storm. However, knowing Chopin’s true message, one can only feel that a very real sexuality in Calixta will be not limited to a one-time

In a rejection of shame and guilt for her infidelity, Calixta appears to be unfazed and even happy after her recent encounter with Alcee. This lack of guilt and shame reinforces the outdated ideal of monogamy, as Calixta has merely been allowed to embrace true passion outside of the oppressive institution of Victorian marriage. This is one reason why remorse no longer plays a part in her behaviors, as the symbolic “storm” reveals the powerful impulses of sexuality that overrode her domestic obligations: “So the storm passed and every one was happy” (Chopin, 1898, para.39). In this manner, the sexual liberation of Calixta becomes the focal point in which sexuality is naturally expressed without the presence of a Victorian conscience: “Sex in this story is a force as strong, inevitable, and natural as the Louisiana storm that ignites it” (Seyersted, 2000, p.166). In this sexual perspective, Chopin ends the story on a positive note, especially in the case of Calixta’s freedom to pursue her won sexual passions without being hindered by oppression marital standards of the Victorian

A woman's happiness and success during this era is often dependant on the male or husband of the marriage. During this era, Chopin displays to us in both her short stories "The Storm" and "The Story of an Hour" of how reliant women are in their relationship and lives. Women during this era were heavily looked down upon. They were looked so down upon that even the women themselves would look down on themselves resulting in more reliant on the men for their success in life. The women during this time era would be so reliant on men they would do much for the men despite whether they had loved him or not. Chopin many times wrote her short stories with women in marriage with men just for the benefits of living and success rather than love; a “vignettte exploring female desires that cannot be fulfilled in marriage, a common theme for Chopin.” (Brantley 1). During the 19th century, both men and women weren't seen as equal at all. Another push to being reliant on men is government rules and policies of men being the more stronger party of the marriage, relationship, or family. Men were seen as the “better” sex so then women were more reliant. Women had to depend on men to supply them in order to live a healthy lifestyle. Kate Chopin displays this highly in her two short stories as the two women seem really reliant on their male counterpart. The two women shows signs of weakness while their male counterpart were away.

Both Kate Chopin and Katharine Mansfield used women as the protagonist and interpretations of the lives and morals during that era. In the storm, Calixta is a wife and mother. Her responsibility is taking care of the family, she gave her love her husband and son. When she met her former lover Alcee, and eventually she could not control herself. In the story, Carlixta has the affair at the right time and place which she has already betrayed her husband. However, Calixta doesn't feel self-deprecating. It is surprising that her husband and son came back after the rain stopped, "the three seated themselves t table they laughed much.... as far away as Laballiere's" (Chopin 108), Calixta changed to a good wife and mother again. Unlike Calixtar cross