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Feminism In The Storm

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Traces of Modern Feminism in Kate Chopin's story "The Storm" The first reading of the story "The Storm" makes a person to be on his guard after knowing it that it was written during the end of the 19th century when Victorian Era was repudiating the same things in Hardy as his crude (at least understood at that time) novel, Jude the Obscure, created a sort of buzz in the literary world. It was also a point of amazement that a female having lived most of her life among females have made a courage to place illicit relations or out of wedlock sex in such clear images in her story like "The Storm" as a modern reader clearly feels the ebbs and flows of the physical movements of both Calixta and her paramour Alcee. This makes it amply clear how forward …show more content…

Bobinot and his son Bibi are at Friedheimer's to purchase grocery when a violent storm approaches them and makes hostage in the story. The second part introduces the readers with Calixta, the heroin of the story, busy in her domestic work ignorant of her looks and passions. As the storm blows hard, she moves the sewing machine fast enough to sweat herself and opens her buttons unconsciously. However, at the same time, her former paramour Alcee Laballiere reaches there whom "She had not seen him very often since here marriage, and never alone" but he is there before her very eyes when she is all alone surrounded in the storm with no chance of Bobinot returning soon (Chopin1). Seeing no way out, she invites Alcee home until the storm peters out. However, he is a bit hesitant but both of them start picking up different things to reach the inside of the house. It is there Alcee realizes that "Her blue eyes still retained their melting quality" and both of them come near each other where the old passion flames up and they engage in a sexual encounter, though they never did during their encounter in the past (2). He soon leaves her and when the storm is over, Bobinot and Bibi come home chirping. On the other hand, Alcee writes his wife Clarisse that she can stay at bay for a while, if she lies and that he is going on nicely. Kate Chopin comments that she "was more willing to forego for a while" though she had never given up her husband, as she is much devoted (5). The female characters specifically Calixta not only demonstrates her personality through her performative actions but also through her sexual empowerment and gender role, while Clarisse is bound in the symbolic order that Calixta has broken to some extent though in the absence of

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