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“The Storm” awakened a silence in me and stirred both my rationale and emotions to search for the root undercurrent of misogyny in my reality. Calixta was a strong character in “The Storm” and she represented the philosophical dichotomy of a woman’s sexuality and her right to enjoy sensual passion and pleasures amidst the ever-revolving societal gate of religious virtues. In the clearest sense, one must ask what it says about a society where the majority of its citizens have failed to evolve and continue to cling to an antiquated religious fairytale that in its purest form teaches and encourages the suppression of both human equality and sexuality of women. Kate Chopin wrote “The Storm” in 1898, although she never submitted the story for …show more content…
Chopin uses visual symbolism throughout the story to represent societal misogynies. The story begins with Calixta’s husband and son away from home while a storm is on the horizon. The husband “called the child’s attention to certain somber clouds that were rolling with sinister intention from the west, accompanied by a sullen, threatening roar.” The clouds represent the societal encroachment of “sinister intention” related to women who dare to desire and enjoy sexual pleasures with men. The threatening roar is the societal condemnation that will occur if the acts are ever revealed. Both the husband and son believe that Calixta will be in fear of the storm, but Chopin intends …show more content…
Calixta encounters an old beau she hasn’t seen in years. Together in the house to escape the rain, a sensuous and spontaneous seduction begins. Chopin describes a bolt of lightning striking a tall chinaberry tree in the yard creating a glare that seemed to shake the very boards Calixta and Alcee were standing on. This lightning strike symbolized the fracture of religious virtues, as the berries on chinaberry trees were once strung together to make rosaries (Wiki “The Storm”). Throughout the passion, Chopin uses descriptions of white to symbolize the purity of pure passion and pleasure enjoyed between a man and a woman. As the storm passes, Chopin states, “The rain was over, and the sun was turning the glistening green world into a palace of gems.” Chopin ended the story, “So the storm passed and everyone was
In Kate Chopin’s story “The Storm” it talks about love and lust. It speaks of two kind of storm that occurs. These two storms I find to be the central part of the story, and is being represented as a symbol within the story. The first storm is the most obvious one that Bibi and Bobinot are faced with. The second storm isn’t that visible for it involves Calixta and Alcee. Just as like most storms they come and pass.
Leading towards the end of the story, Armand builds a bonfire on the pyre. The bonfire symbolized Armand getting rid of all his memories of his wife and child. Throughout this paper I have shared Chopin’s use of symbolic elements by discussing symbols of racism, social class distinction, and the symbolic elements involving the difference between the gender roles. At the end of the story Armand reads a letter from his mom to his father. Armand finds out that his mother is from the African descent after; he has lost his marriage and family.
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, Kate Chopin was able to provide a view that would symbolize the premise of desires through variations of the storm.
Perhaps the clearest examples of foreshadowing in "The Storm" are the made when Chopin introduces the storm, writes that Calixta and Alcée had never been alone together since her marriage, calls attention to Calixta unbuttoning her garment because of the heat, mentions the distance separating Calixta from her husband and son and describes Calixta's physical appearance. These areas of foreshadowing maintain the reader's interest in the story and prepare the readers for the turn of events.
A storm defined by the Princeton dictionary means "violent weather condition, or a direct and violent assault " Kate Chopin personifies and creates imagery of a dark ominous storm heading from the distance with an ominous presence and dark intentions. “…sombre clouds that were rolling with sinister intention from the west, accompanied by a sullen, threatening roar.” The calm before the storm is all but gone, the storm pressing closer and closer, yet, Calixta is not doing much before the unavoidable storm hits her home. By the use of symbolism Kate Chopin shows that Calixta willingly opens herself up in the beginning of the story. “She unfastened her white sacque at the throat” what can this represent? This poor defenseless woman lets her neck out in the open; just like an antelope in the wild that is tired of ruing from a lion gives up by turning their neck towards their predator and giving up their jugular. Calixta is not deterred by the ideals of the time and decides to take her conventional life out of the norm. Rebecca Long-Kluckner from the Association of Young Journalists and writers, writes the folloing "Kate Chopin wrote in a time period that believed women did not even possess sexual desires, but only behaved pro...
The short story “The Storm” by Kate Chopin, deals with the subject of adultery. The story takes place in the early 1900’s. There are two main characters, Calixta (the wife) and Alcee (the former lover). Alcee must take refuge from a passing storm in Calixta’s house, while he is there the two end up making love while Calixta’s husband and son have to wait out the storm at the local store. By doing this Chopin implies the theme that is, adultery is natural and does not necessarily have negative consequences. Through out the story the constant changing of imagery plays a great role in the development of characters and their ability to demonstrate the theme.
These two themes are built upon two main characters. Even the smallest details of these characters bring out the themes in a way that can only give the story a happy ending. Calixta still has a place in her heart for Alce, her prince charming, which gives the affair a chance to happen. The overall story is symbolized through the color white and the passing storm which intensifies all of the emotions in the story. “The Storm” was a controversial story that many did not approve of when it was first written. Today it is appreciated, along with most of Chopin’s work, as an important part of the feminine
“The Storm" is about two people, Calixta and Alcee, who had been in a previous relationship. Although both have moved on by getting married and starting a family, a chance encounter lead them to a lustrous affair. “Calixta and Alcee share a past romantic infatuation that is not consummated until the afternoon of the storm” (Milne 291). Chopin wrote this story in 1898, but it was not published at that time. “Chopin did not try to send ‘The Storm’ out to editors...It was first published in The Complete Works of Kate Chopin in 1969” (Kate), which was sixty-five years after her death. This controversial subject was not the norm in the 1890’s. “Female writers in 1898 did not write such detailed accounts of a sexual encounter...In the ease with which she wrote about human sexuality; Chopin was ahead of her time” (qtd. in Milne 296).
Right from the moment Louise Mallard hears of her husband's death, Kate Chopin dives into a her vivid use of imagery. “When the storm of grief has spent itself” introduces a weather oriented theme (para.3). This imagery depicts a violent and dark setting that denotes death and grief. Her reaction to her husband's death ideally what society would expect. Her acute reaction instantly shows that she is an emotional, demonstrative woman. Even tho...
...present powerful characters, while females represent unimportant characters. Unaware of the influence of society’s perception of the importance of sexes, literature and culture go unchanged. Although fairytales such as Sleeping Beauty produce charming entertainment for children, their remains a didactic message that lays hidden beneath the surface; teaching future generations to be submissive to the inequalities of their gender. Feminist critic the works of former literature, highlighting sexual discriminations, and broadcasting their own versions of former works, that paints a composite image of women’s oppression (Feminist Theory and Criticism). Women of the twenty-first century serge forward investigating, and highlighting the inequalities of their race in effort to organize a better social life for women of the future (Feminist Theory and Criticism).
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 reveals her idea of the relationship between men and women by showing instances of inferiority and superiority throughout the story. In 'A Point at Issue,' there are many instances where the idea of hypocrisy and the attitudes that the main characters display and how their actions affect each other's lives, show the impact that men have on women's lives.
Many short story writers have written about the gender and role of woman in society. Some of these stories express what Barbara Walter calls, “The Cult of True Womanhood” meaning the separation of both man and woman in social, political and economic spheres. In order to be considered a “true woman” woman were to abide by the set of standards that were given to her. Women were expected to live by the four main principal virtues - piety, purity, submissiveness, and domestication. In Kate Chopin’s short story, “The Storm,” Calixta the main female character breaks away from “The Cult of True Womanhood” when she has a sexual encounter with her past lover Alcée. The storm goes through many twists and turns that tie with their adulterous actions. Although she breaks away from the four main principal virtues, she in the end is considered to be pure innocent of heart because the action in which occurred happened instantly, and as white as she was, she was taken away from her innocence.
Calixta and Alce, the two main characters in the short story “The Storm” by Kate Chopin, are sexual, mature, and knowing adults. By having them discover amazing sex outside their marriages, they return to their own marriages renewed. Chopin openly condones adultery due to the fact that the characters are not punished and in the end “everyone was happy” (paragraph 40) . A common theme of fresh sexuality and desire is seen in this story though symbols and other literary elements. Kate Chopin is an American author that wrote short stories and novels in the 20th century.
She lambasted society for its perpetual close-mindedness in a time when righteousness was considered to be an attribute, and she helped to generate more enlightened attitudes among both the women and men of her time. In The Storm, the character of Calixta is unable to fulfill society's standards of virtue, despite her perceived purity by her lover Alcee. When Alcee professes, "If she was not an immaculate dove in those days, she was still inviolate" (p. 34), he is basically saying that just because a woman is not chaste, does not mean she is not pure of heart. After all, it was Calixta's marriage which had stripped her of her chastity status.
Xuding Wang writes in her essay, Feminine Self-Assertion in “The Story of an Hour”, a strong defense for Kate Chopin’s classic work, “The Story of an Hour”. Wang provides powerful proof that one of the pioneering feminist writers had a genuine desire to push the issue of feminine inequality. Even decades later, Xuding Wang fights for the same ground as Kate Chopin before her. She focuses on critic Lawrence I. Berkove, who challenges that Louise Mallard is delusional with her personal feelings of freedom once she discovers the news that her husband has passed away. The story opens with the line “Knowing Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble” (Chopin). [1] Chopin uses allegory to describe