Kate Chopin’s stories reveal the free female impulses through her fine characters that lived during the days of gender restrictions and repression. It was a time when society believed that only men had sexual desires and women were born to serve men and to carry on the burden of reproduction. Chopin realized that it was her duty to speak out the truth about fair sex and try to establish the right over one’s body and soul. Her two stories, “The Storm” and “The Story of an Hour” are discussed in this paper to see how well Kate achieves her creative intention.
“The Storm” is a short story, but it is packed with the strong passion of the protagonist named Calixta. On a stormy day, her husband and her son go out and they find themselves trapped in a store as a heavy storm and rain lash outside. Both the son and his father are anxious about Calixta as she is alone at home. As Calixta tries to collect the clothes from outside and close all windows and doors, a man knocks and seeks shelter from the rain. It was Alcee Laballiere, an old friend of hers. Outside the storm turns wild along with lightning and thunder. The lady gets scared and Alcee holds her tightly, giving her a sense of protection. The physical touch turns into a violent passion. “The contact of her warm, palpitating body when he had unthinkingly drawn her into his arms, had aroused all the old-time infatuation and desire for her flesh”, says the narrator (Chopin). He kisses her and his old infatuation for her is relived with an uncontrollable desire to ease his passion. They are “at the very borderland of life’s mystery”. The passion inside the house ebbs as outside the sun comes out after a heavy storm and rain. Alcee leaves the place. Bibi and Bobinot, the son and the father, step in with a packet of shrimp. Life moves as before as if there never blew a storm in her life.
“The Story of an Hour” is equally interesting though it looks immoral if viewed with men’s spectacles. How the news of the death of her husband is taken by a wife is the thrust of the story. Brently Mallard is reported to have been killed in an accident. It is reported to his wife by a friend named Richard with great caution as she has a weak heart. Her sister, Josephine, is near her to attend to her if she breaks out at the sudden tragedy. Mallard reacts to the news like any ardent wife but prefers to shut herself in a room to be alone. Here the narrator gets into her subconscious mind to reveal her actual reaction to the loss of her husband. She feels free at last, “Spring days, and summer days, and all sorts of days that would be her own”, says the narrator (Chopin). She does not have to be a slave to anyone anymore. Her body and soul from now on belongs to her, with no more repression in her life. As with such thoughts of liberty, she rejoices in her inner self; she makes out a plan of her liberated future life. At this moment, her sister knocks at the door. Mallard comes out still displaying the role of bereavement. Suddenly she finds her husband standing at the door, saying that he was nowhere near the sight of the accident.
Both Calixta and Mallard represent the female passion and their yearning for freedom. Passion is like a storm lashes at an unexpected time and it does not choose the place and objects. Its freedom is beyond repression. These stories also lead to a rethinking about chastity, possession, and the sense of honesty in marital life. Chopin thus opens a stormy debate in the phallic world about the violent nature of female impulses.
Reference
Chopin, Kate. “The Storm”. Web.
Chopin, Kate. “The Story of an Hour”. Web.