Calixta As Depicted In The Storm By Kate Chopin

In The Awakening, Kate Chopin ends the novel in a vastly different way than most authors would have at that time with her main character, Edna Pontellier, committing suicide by drowning herself. If one were to isolate this ending without any context whatsoever, it would feel tragic and depressing; however, the events leading up to her death actually explains to the readers her spiritual reassessment and moral reconciliation, both of which being themes significant to the book as a whole.

A theme is the prime element of literature, which contains the central idea of the story. It helps reflect on the characteristics that a story might have and reflects on observations interpreted from our view of the author. The theme, a main idea or underlying meaning of literary work may be stated directly or indirectly, but it is ultimately our job to figure it out. Throughout any story, short story or poem you can see the constant change of imagery that will play a big part in the development of the characters ability’s to demonstrate the theme. In “The Storm” by Kate Chopin, the theme illustrates many sexual desires, adultery, and happiness as well as shows a theme of conflict. Chopin uses a storm to represent sexual passionate tension that builds throughout the story between the two main characters Alcee and Calixta.

After Calixta meets with Alcee she no longer show signs of frustration or exhaustion; she is now worried about Bobinot and Bibi out in the storm. As Alcee is walking to the porch he “snatched Bibi’s braided jacket that was about to be carried away by a sudden gust of wind” (Chopin 532). This evidence demonstrates Alcee will to obtain anything he

In the novel, The Awakening, by Kate Chopin, we see how much of an importance the men in Edna’s life serve as a purpose to her awakening. Chopin is known to write stories about women who are unsatisfied with their lives while living in a life that is dominated by men. Other than Edna, the main men characters are typical men of the late 19th century era. Chopin shows how these three men are diverse from one another. The Creole men are Léonce Pontellier, Edna’s husband, Robert, Edna’s mystery man number one, and Alcee, mystery man number two. Léonce, Edna’s husband, is a businessman who has no time for his family let alone his wife. Alcee comes off as carefree and does not seem to care what society thinks of him. Robert is Edna’s main mystery man who she loves but Robert doesn’t love her back. Throughout the novel, these men make Edna question herself, which lead her to her awakening. These men show how men in the late 19th century behaved. In a male dominated world, women were not allowed to do much except for be good wives and mothers to their families. Edna learned the hard way as to what it meant to be the wife of a Creole man in the Victorian era. Men expected too much of women because appearances meant everything and no man would want to have a wife who is out of line and not well behaved in public. In studying these three men in Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, we see how different yet alike these men are to one another.

Over the course of time the male species has always been the gender to attain the more favorable conditions. Numerous cultures heed to the belief that the man is the provider and head of his family. This machismo nature can condition the mind to believe that a man should feel superior to a woman. The continuous cycle of male superiority flows down from father to son subconsciously. Do to this unceasing sequence of behavior women fall subject to repression and control at the hands of mentally undeveloped men. Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, illustrated this particular topic in a way that not only appealed to the readers’ sense of pathos but, the readers’ likeliness to be able to relate to the aforementioned as well. Chopin stylistically renders the struggle of the protagonist Edna Pontellier, a strong willed woman who finds herself imprisoned to the concept of trans-temporal existence, as she seeks refuge to her true being, Edna experiments relationships with multiple men that unintentionally repress her existence. Between Leonce Pontellier, Robert Lebrun, Alcee Arobin and The Colonel effect of Edna’s life they catalyze her awakening and ultimately lead her suicide.

With the passing of the storm and the departure of Alcee, Calixta does not revert to her subordinate housewife bonds. Instead, she uses her awakening to discover newfound happiness in her marriage and duties as a wife and mother. When Bobinot and Bibi return, the reader sees a different Calixta than the downtrodden, worried, and selfless Calixta from the beginning of the story. In fact, it is the father and son who must begin ?to relax and enjoy themselves,? not Calixta, who is already joyously preparing dinner (861). At the dinner table, ?they laughed much and so loud that anyone might have heard them? (861). The only other time

'The Storm' begins on a stormy spring day, with the protagonist Calixta at her sewing machine. She is alone, her husband Bobinot and son Bibi have gone to the store. Calixta seems to be a bored woman, confined to her duties as a housewife and mother. As the distant storm approaches she is unaware of what the storm brings, her former lover Alcee.

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.

There is no doubt her husband loves and cares for her but her feelings and passion seemed untouched by Bobinot. Before her marriage, Alcee seemed to satisfy her in a way that Bobinot does not, but since she loves her family she represses those feelings. The story of Calixta is saddening to me but as a mother myself, I can understand why she chooses to repress her feelings. Her husband seems to give her no cause to disrupt family life and leave the marriage and she does not make that decision based on pure selfish reasons. Her choice simply relieved her possible frustrations for a while.

Calixta and Alcee had a strong passion for each other. Chopin says: Alcee rides up to her house and asks “if he can take shelter

The conflict between love and lust begins with the contrast between one young man’s true love for Calixta and another’s lust. In the first story, Chopin introduces the reader to Bobinôt, an Acadian farmer, who is day dreaming about Calixta, the “Spanish vixen” (Chopin 1265). With a Cajun background, Bobinôt already possesses a social tension with Alcée, a wealthy Creole planter. Guarino comments on this cultural tension in her ethnic analysis: “Belonging mostly to the lower class, Cajuns have always had a conflict relation to the upper class formed mostly of Creoles” (7). Chopin displays this in the distaste Bobinôt mentally expresses towards Alcée in the first story “At the ‘Cadian Ball.” In addition to the social turmoil between the two men, Chopin further distinguishes between true love and lust by contrasting Bobinôt’s

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.

Two Friends Do The Hokey Pokey With Positive Results In this short story “The Storm”, by Kate Chopin, a woman is waiting for her husband and son to return home during a storm. Unannounced, her previous lover, Alcée, shows up at her gate in need of shelter from the rain. Calixta allows him inside her home. As they begin to talk to each other, it starts to become intimate and eventually leads to intercourse.

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).

but she behaves immorally. She is a very pretty woman who has a fling with her former lover Alcee while waiting out the storm. Calixta seems to be a good mother and to care for her husband, she just isn’t happy with him. For example, she worries about Bibi and Bobinot’s safety the storm, which proves she cares for them. Yet she finds comfort from her former lover Alcee while worrying about her husband and child. Chopin states “Alcee’s arm encircled her, and for an instant he drew he close and spasmodically to him” (The Storm 2). This proves she must care for her husband, but turns to Alcee when needed comforting.