Critisize
The Storm: Hope Alcee Wore a Raincoat
In the late 1800’s women were completely controlled by men. A woman’s purpose in life was to marry, reproduce and serve their husband and the cost of their own needs and desires. When Kate Chopin wrote “the Storm,” in 1898, she wanted to express how women were sexually repressed and that women were in fact complex sexual beings that had sexual needs.
It was long believed in Chopin’s era, that woman where not sexual by nature and incapable of having a sexual feeling, and the only reason a woman would participate in sex was out of concern for their husbands. Chopin’s directly challenges this belief when she writes about the intimate interaction between Calitxa and Alcee: “When he touched her breasts they gave themselves up in quivering ecstasy, inviting his lips. Her mouth was a fountain of delight. And when he possessed her, they seemed to swoon together at the very borderland of life's mystery.” Calixta is proven to be a woman capable of strong sexual desire.
In many ways the issue of sexual repression created Chopin’s own personal storm. Similar to how the storm in the story threatens the rip the house from its foundation. Chopin’s storm which is “The Storm” threatens to rip the house of female repression from the foundation of male dominance. Chopin’s uses the title “the storm,” to symbolize the sexual repression happening to the women in her time.
A strong sexual desire that remains pent-up for too long can create a tremendous amount of repressed energy. Eventually the energy will burst forth with an unpredictable and ravenous force similar to the storm in the story. As Calixta quickly found out, all it takes is the right conditions to create an emotional cyclone that not even a person with the best of intentions can control.
Chopin feels that because of unpredictable and stormy nature of Calitxa’s sexuality, she is not doing bad in any way. Alcee described Calixta as “a revelation in that dim, mysterious
In the late 1800’s women were completely controlled by men. A woman’s purpose in life was to marry, reproduce and serve their husband and the cost of their own needs and desires. When Kate Chopin wrote “the Storm,” in 1898, she wanted to express how women were sexually repressed and that women were in fact complex sexual beings that had sexual needs.
It was long believed in Chopin’s era, that woman where not sexual by nature and incapable of having a sexual feeling, and the only reason a woman would participate in sex was out of concern for their husbands. Chopin’s directly challenges this belief when she writes about the intimate interaction between Calitxa and Alcee: “When he touched her breasts they gave themselves up in quivering ecstasy, inviting his lips. Her mouth was a fountain of delight. And when he possessed her, they seemed to swoon together at the very borderland of life's mystery.” Calixta is proven to be a woman capable of strong sexual desire.
In many ways the issue of sexual repression created Chopin’s own personal storm. Similar to how the storm in the story threatens the rip the house from its foundation. Chopin’s storm which is “The Storm” threatens to rip the house of female repression from the foundation of male dominance. Chopin’s uses the title “the storm,” to symbolize the sexual repression happening to the women in her time.
A strong sexual desire that remains pent-up for too long can create a tremendous amount of repressed energy. Eventually the energy will burst forth with an unpredictable and ravenous force similar to the storm in the story. As Calixta quickly found out, all it takes is the right conditions to create an emotional cyclone that not even a person with the best of intentions can control.
Chopin feels that because of unpredictable and stormy nature of Calitxa’s sexuality, she is not doing bad in any way. Alcee described Calixta as “a revelation in that dim, mysterious