The Storm by Kate Chopin - Research Paper Example

The Storm by Kate Chopin Response to Question The Storm takes place in Louisiana, the small town where all the characters reside. A small portion of the story happens at Friedheimer’s store, the house Clarisse is vacating, and Alcées house, but Calixta and Bobinôts home is the most important setting – when Bobinôt is absent (Chopin 1). Instead, another man takes over his place in the bedroom and has sex with his wife. The storm traps Calixta and Alcée in the room and they are forced into the bedroom, into each other’s’ arms before they get onto the bed (Chopin 1).

The home is not properly described: it has a porch (small front gallery), the dining room (general utility room), and the “dim and mysterious” bedroom, which has a “white monumental bed” (Chopin 1). The house offers shelter to Alcée and Calixta during the storm, allowing them to be together. Overall, the storm is given more presence than the house.Response to Question 2In a classic beginning, peril is imminent from Mother Nature herself. Bobinôt, the man of the house, is away from home hence cannot protect his wife (Bertee 1).

It would be tragic if Calixta had to endure the storm alone in the huge house, worrying about Bobinôt and her son’s whereabouts. However, she is not alone: immediately the storm begins, a cute man (Alcée) shows up – a guy Calixta remembers quite well in her history (Bertee 1). That is a complication waiting to occur, a complication that takes the story to climax before it eventually ends.Response to Question 3After Binot and his son (Bibi) arrive home drenched and muddy, he goes to the extent of cleaning both of them before they get into the house.

According to the text, “He scraped the mud off Bibis bare legs and feet with a stick and carefully removed all traces from his heavy brogans” (Chopin 1) before entering the house, hopeful that Calixta would not be enraged by the mess. Such extreme care as this indicates that Bobinot cared about what his wife thinks, loves her, and wants to please her. Bobinot then gives her wife some shrimp as a token of affection (Bertee 1). As they sit down to take a meal, “they laughed much and loud” (Chopin 1).

Obviously, Bobinot loves her wife’s company. However, this incident also indicates that Bobinot is naïve about her wife and does not know her quite well. A wife that is often “over-scrupulous” (Chopin 1) for whom Bobinot had “explanations and apologies which he had been composing all along the way” (Chopin 1) for the muddy look and was “fearful” (Chopin 1) of her chastisement upon entering the house, to be overwhelmed with laughter and concern should have given him the tip that something was different.

Bobinot is unaware of the fickle fidelity of his wife and cannot read her moods well. Nevertheless, he seems to love her (Bertee 1).Response to Question 4As in most of her stories, Chopin implies that marriage is not necessarily about bliss and happiness for all women (Bertee 1). During Chopin’s time, women were born and raised up to be married. In her time, expressing dissatisfaction with marriage was very rare and despicable. Moreover, sexual independence of a woman was one of the highest taboos (Bertee 1).

In the Storm, however, she portrays a woman who strays out of marriage’s accepted moral boundaries and finds supreme happiness in so doing (Chopin 1). Calixta is portrayed as a woman who does not love and is little concerned about her husband and child, and who is a bit temperamental and irritable around them (Chopin 1). With this, Chopin is indicating that Calixta finds no joy, bliss and fulfillment in her marriage as she is “supposed” to (Bertee 1). The Storm is a story about human beings’ innate sexual tendencies and reflects the sexual reservations of Chopin’s time.

Chopin is more connected to her feminine sexuality because of her background (Bertee 1). Throughout the story, she communicates her personal thoughts about sexuality and makes a hidden declaration about her opinion on the modern era’s sexual way of life.Works CitedBertee, Joanna. “The Storm: More than Just a Story.” VWC, 2012. Accessed from http://facultystaff.vwc.edu/~cbellamy/southern%20literature/SL%20Chopin.htm 03 October 2014.Chopin, Kate. “Kate Chopin: The Storm.” The Kate Chopin International Society, (n.d.).

Accessed from http://www.katechopin.org/the-storm.shtml 03 October 2014.