Kate Chopin

Sierra Eichholz
Composition 2
April 13, 2013
Final Essay 4

Literature to be discussed, including author: Kate Chopin’s “The Storm”
In Kate Chopin’s time, during the late 19th century, sexual relations were seen as outside of a woman’s knowledge and concern. What is unusual about Chopin’s story is that even publication of adultery was considered very scandalous but Chopin did so anyways. During this time once you married someone you were basically stuck with them. Many people who were married didn’t want to marry the person. Divorce was very uncommon. This means women were often tied to one person and one person only even if they were not happy with the marriage.** In fact, the “Matrimonial Causes Act in 1857 gave women limited access to divorce. But while the husband only had to prove his wife's adultery, a woman had to prove her husband had not only committed adultery but also incest, bigamy, cruelty or desertion”( )**
In Chopin’s short story, “The Storm”, she shows the effect of restrained marriage on a young woman named Calixta during an encounter with an old flame. The narrator does not seem to judge the actions of the characters as wrong. Since women in this time had to be “proper” all the time, they had many restraints and were not supposed to express their desires. What could and probably caused an uproar during this time is the fact that Chopin is supporting/encouraging sexual freedom as a healthy and natural thing. She shows a great depiction on how marriages were like in the late 19th century.
Chopin shows that many women were not satisfied in their marriage during the 19th century. In the beginning of “The Storm”, it is obvious that a huge storm is brewing up. This seems to symbolize conflict that has been arising for Calixta. Her husband is away and is not there to protect her. At first she is subconsciously unaware of the storm but “she felt very warm and often stopped to mop her face on which the perspiration gathered in beads” (Chopin 270). Not too long afterwards she realized the situation outside. When Alcee arrives, Calixta’s perspiration is increased so does the progression of the storm. Like many women at the time, Calixta is so busy with house hold duties that she at first doesn’t even notice the storm outside. The husbands were usually not home because of work while they women stayed home and dealt with the children and house.
Women in this time were just expected to be just house wives. “The wife's role was to complement her husband. A man took a wife to look after his affairs, and to prepare his children for their proper stations in life. It was a wife's duty to care for her husband's interests. To these ends, she was to be mistress of the family and run it well enough so that her husband would only enjoy it and could focus his attention on the matters of the world. As long as the household could be managed within the bounds of the husband's income by a woman who practiced and taught piety, purity and submissiveness, then "all was as it should be. Many books at the time were devoted to housekeeping and cooking. This made it perfectly clear that a woman's domain was her home and she was expected to have total charge of all within. If she was unfamiliar with family management, she was urged to consult the authorities” (Fortin ). Just like Calixta in the beginning women were greatly occupied doing things they were expected to do and did not have much time to their selves.

Calixta is not a victim in what is going on. Chopin makes it obvious that Calixta is a willing participant. Calixta finally shows that she also desires him when “she glanced up at him the fear in her liquid blue eyes had given place to a drowsy gleam that unconsciously betrayed a sensuous desire” (Chopin 272).

c. Calixta probably is not physically loved by her husband enough if she was she most likely wouldn’t have cheated on her husband.
d. “She sat at a side window sewing furiously on a sewing machine. She was greatly occupied and did not notice the approaching storm” (Chopin 271).

e. Women in this time were just expected to be just house wives. In the beginning it shows that Calixta is greatly occupied doing things she is expected to do and not having any time to herself.

**“Marriage rates were comparatively stable during the late decades of the 19th century, with 30 of the 34 annual rates varying from 8.7 to 9.2 per 1,000 without showing a noticeable trend. The rate started to increase after the turn of the century.” *